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Strategies for Promoting Patient Safety

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Medical errors may occur in different health care settings, and those that happen in hospitals can have serious consequences. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which has sponsored hundreds of patient safety research and implementation projects, offers these evidence-based tips to prevent adverse events from occurring in your hospital. Improve hand hygiene compliance The link between dirty hands and the transmission of health care-associated infections has strong backing in epidemiological literature, and the importance of hand hygiene has been touted by the World Health Organization, the Joint Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet rates of hand washing are low, averaging 39%, with many doctors and nurses underestimating the activity's safety value.Research shows that effective hand hygiene initiatives improve knowledge of when to clean and how to clean, require demonstration of the knowledge, ensure that alcohol-based rub ...

Virtual Doctors - The Leading Physicians of the World

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After years of big promises, telemedicine is finally living up to its potential. Driven by faster internet connections, ubiquitous smartphones and changing insurance standards, more health providers are turning to electronic communications to do their jobs—and it’s upending the delivery of health care. Doctors are linking up with patients by phone, email and webcam. They’re also consulting with each other electronically—sometimes to make split-second decisions on heart attacks and strokes. Patients, meanwhile, are using new devices to relay their blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs to their doctors so they can manage chronic conditions at home. Telemedicine also allows for better care in places where medical expertise is hard to come by. Five to 10 times a day, Doctors Without Borders relays questions about tough cases from its physicians in Niger, South Sudan and elsewhere to its network of 280 experts around the world, and back again via the internet. In ...

Things to know about MRI Technology

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MRI is a  non-invasive imaging technology that produces three dimensional detailed anatomical images without the use of damaging radiation. It is often used for disease detection, diagnosis, and treatment monitoring. It is based on sophisticated technology that excites and detects the change in the direction of the rotational axis of protons found in the water that makes up living tissues. How does MRI work? MRIs employ powerful magnets which produce a strong magnetic field that forces protons in the body to align with that field. When a radio frequency current is then pulsed through the patient, the protons are stimulated, and spin out of equilibrium, straining against the pull of the magnetic field. When the radio frequency field is turned off, the MRI sensors are able to detect the energy released as the protons realign with the magnetic field. The time it takes for the protons to realign with the magnetic field, as well as the amount of energy release...