Our Virtual Tribe: Sustaining and Enhancing Community via Online Music Improvisation.

This article documents experiences of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra's virtual, synchronous improvisation sessions during COVID-19 pandemic via interviews with 29 participants. Sessions included an international, gender balanced, and cross generational group of over 70 musicians all of whom were living under conditions of social distancing. All sessions were recorded using Zoom software. After 3 months of twice weekly improvisation sessions, 29 interviews with participants were undertaken, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Key themes include how the sessions provided opportunities for artistic development, enhanced mood, reduced feelings of isolation, and sustained and developed community. Particular attention is placed upon how improvisation as a universal, real time, social, and collaborative process facilitates interaction, allowing the technological affordances of software (latencies, sound quality, and gallery/speaker view) and hardware (laptop, tablet, instruments, microphones, headphones, and objects in room) to become emergent properties of artistic collaborations. The extent to which this process affects new perceptual and conceptual breakthroughs for practitioners is discussed as is the crucial and innovative relationship between audio and visual elements. Analysis of edited films of the sessions highlight artistic and theoretical and conceptual issues discussed. Emphasis is given to how the domestic environment merges with technologies to create The Theatre of Home.

Peripheral Intravenous Cannula Insertion and Use in the Emergency Department: An Intervention Study.

OBJECTIVES: The objective was to examine cannulation practice and effectiveness of a multimodal intervention to reduce peripheral intravenous cannula (PIVC) insertion in emergency department (ED) patients. METHODS: A prospective before and after study and cost analysis was conducted at a single tertiary ED in Australia. Data were collected 24 hours a day for 2 weeks pre- and post implementation of a multimodal intervention. PIVC placement and utilization within 24 hours were evaluated in all eligible patients. RESULTS: A total of 4,173 participants were included in the analysis. PIVCs were placed in 42.1% of patients' pre intervention and 32.4% post intervention, a reduction of 9.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 6.8 to -12.72%). PIVC usage within 24 hours of admission was 70.5% pre intervention and 83.4% post intervention, an increase of 12.9% (95% CI = 8.8% to 17.0%). Sixty-six patients were observed in the ED for cost analysis. The mean time per PIVC insertion was 15.3 (95% CI = 12.6 to 17.9) minutes. PIVC insertion cost, including staff time and consumables per participant, was A$22.79 (95% CI = A$19.35 to A$26.23). CONCLUSIONS: The intervention reduced PIVC placement in the ED and increased the percentage of PIVCs placed that were used. This program benefits patients and health services alike, with potential for large cost savings.

PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS ADVISORY COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS IN AUSTRALIA.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine submissions made to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and assess whether the predicted financial impact was associated with a recommendation. The second objective was to assess whether the financial and utilization estimates for listing the proposed medicine were reliable. METHODS: Data were extracted from public summary documents of major submissions considered by the PBAC from 2012 to 2014. Information collected included whether submissions were accepted, rejected, or deferred; estimated use; and financial impact. For those submissions that were recommended in 2012 and listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) by January 2014, a comparison was made between predicted and actual use and cost in 2014, based on PBS utilization. RESULTS: In 2012 to 2014, the PBAC considered 142 unique major submissions; of those, 65 were recommended for listing. A higher financial cost to the government was a statistically significant factor in predicting rejection (p = .004 for cost > AUD 30 million Australian dollars [20.7 million Euros] compared with cost-saving). Of the submissions that were recommended in 2012 and listed by 2014, the actual use was higher than predicted for 5/19 medications. The estimated cost was outside the predicted bracket of cost for 10/19 medications, with 8/19 medications having threefold underestimated expenditure, and 2/19 items having lower than predicted expenditure. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights that the predicted financial impact of a medication to the PBS budget is associated with a PBAC recommendation and also highlights that predicted use may not reflect actual prescribing practices.