An audit of inpatient insulin prescriptions - how error relates to information source.

Background: The risk of hospital insulin prescription errors in the UK has remained unchanged despite the adoption of several national initiatives. This audit was conducted to evaluate whether the prescription errors were related to the information source used. Aims: To determine what sources of information are used at the time of hospital admission of patients with diabetes to obtain details of their insulin regimen and how different sources relate to prescription errors. Method: We examined the clinical notes of 85 patients with diabetes and confirmed the insulin doses with the patient or the carer administering insulin. Results: Only 44 out of 85 (52%) patients or carers administering insulin recalled being asked about insulin; prescription errors were slightly lower in these patients but overall insulin prescription error remains at one in four. Conclusion: The persisting inpatient insulin error rate calls for a review of how the information on insulin regimen is collected and used by the healthcare services.

High-fidelity initialization and control of electron and nuclear spins in a four-qubit register.

Single electron spins bound to multi-phosphorus nuclear spin registers in silicon have demonstrated fast (0.8 ns) two-qubit SWAP gates and long spin relaxation times (~30 s). In these spin registers, when the donors are ionized, the nuclear spins remain weakly coupled to their environment, allowing exceptionally long coherence times. When the electron is present, the hyperfine interaction allows coupling of the spin and charge degrees of freedom for fast qubit operation and control. Here we demonstrate the use of the hyperfine interaction to enact electric dipole spin resonance to realize high-fidelity ( F = 10 0 - 6 + 0 %) initialization of all the nuclear spins within a four-qubit nuclear spin register. By controllably initializing the nuclear spins to ⇓ ⇓ ⇓ , we achieve single-electron qubit gate fidelities of F = 99.78 ± 0.07% (Clifford gate fidelities of 99.58 ± 0.14%), above the fault-tolerant threshold for the surface code with a coherence time of T 2 * = 12 µ s .

Socio-demographic Profile of COVID-19 Patients and Difficulties Faced by Them while Testing RT-PCR: A Multi-center Cross-sectional Study.

This study was aimed to find out the socio-demographic profiles as well as difficulties of Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing faced by Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. This cross-sectional study was conducted from 10th August to 7th September 2020. Data were collected by telephone interview using a pre-designed questionnaire after taking verbal consent from the participants. Out of 281 COVID-19 patients, 279 were diagnosed by RT-PCR; 10.3% were asymptomatic. Off them 67.6%were males, 24% were hospital staffs. Majority (66.2%) were from the non-city corporation area. History of recent contact with known COVID-19 patients was present in 56.9% cases. Fever (78.3%) and cough (58%) were the most common symptoms. One third of the patients faced difficulty to test RT-PCR for COVID-19. Sixteen percent patients complained of difficulty of getting serial for testing, the maximum waiting time was one week before giving samples. Thirty patients (10.8%) had to wait longer than usual time after reaching the center before giving sample. Hospital staffs were unable to co-operate in 2.5% of the patients while difficulty of managing transport to the hospital for suspected COVID-19 patient was an issue in 2.2% of the patients. Though testing was more difficult in city corporation areas (p=0.028), delay of getting test result was less (p<0.001). Maximum delay of getting test result was 10 days. Finding out the difficulties of COVID-19 testing will help to point out the issues behind these and will help to take necessary steps to tackle this matter. Testing rate can be increased to contain this highly contagious virus in this densely populated country.

Glycemic index, glycemic load and their association with glycemic control among patients with type 2 diabetes.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The aim was to investigate the associations of glycemic index (GI), glycemic load (GL), carbohydrate and fiber intakes with hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetic patients. SUBJECTS/METHODS: In a cross-sectional study of 640 type 2 diabetic patients aged 28-75 years, usual dietary intakes were assessed by validated food frequency questionnaire. We used published international and Iranian tables of GI based on the white bread. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: High-GL diet was associated with higher risk of hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetic patients after controlling for potential confounders. In multivariable model, OR (95% CI) for the highest vs the lowest quartile of GL was 2.58 (1.08-6.15) for elevated fasting serum glucose (FSG) (>130 mg/dl) (P(trend) = 0.02) and was 3.05 (1.33-7.03) for elevated HbA1c (>8.6%) (P(trend)=0.008). After additional adjusting for dietary fiber and protein intakes, the relation of GL with elevated FSG and HbA1c was stable. GI was not significantly associated with either elevated FSG or HbA1c. In multivariable model, OR (95% CI) for the highest vs lowest quartile of the substitution of dietary carbohydrate for fat intake was 2.32 (1.37-3.92) for elevated HbA1c (P(trend) = 0.001). Higher intake of dietary fiber was associated with lower risk of elevated FSG (highest vs lowest quartile: OR, 0.53; 95% CI: 0.28-0.99; P(trend) = 0.04), but not with lower risk of elevated HbA1c. CONCLUSIONS: GL and carbohydrate intake were positively associated with the risk of hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetic patients; but the benefit in pursuing a low-GI diet without considering carbohydrate and energy intakes in these patients should be further investigated.