The effectiveness of the Attends Product Selector Tool in continence management in a care home setting.

Qualified nurses are accountable for selecting a suitable containment product for care home residents, which can be challenging for both the resident and health professional. Absorbent incontinence products are the most commonly used products for containing leakage. The purpose of this observational study was to review and understand how effective the Attends Product Selector Tool is when used to assess a resident for an appropriate disposable incontinence product and the in-use experience of products in relation to containment, product use and effectiveness. The study was undertaken in three care homes, with 92 residents who had an initial assessment undertaken either by an Attends Product Manager or a nurse trained in how to use the tool. A total of 316 products over a 48-hour period were individually assessed by the observer to check the time the pad was changed, the type of pad used, the voided volume in the pad and if the pad had leaked. The results showed that some residents had their products changed inappropriately. Not all residents were using the products that best suited their assessment; this mostly occurred at night. Overall, the tool was effective in enabling staff to select an appropriate style of containment product. However, when it came to selecting the absorbency, the assessor tended to choose a higher absorbency rather than starting at the lower absorbency in the product guide range. The observer found the assessed product was not always used and was sometimes changed inappropriately due to lack of communication and staff turnover.

Assessing Open-Ended Human-Computer Collaboration Systems: Applying a Hallmarks Approach.

There is a growing desire to create computer systems that can collaborate with humans on complex, open-ended activities. These activities typically have no set completion criteria and frequently involve multimodal communication, extensive world knowledge, creativity, and building structures or compositions through multiple steps. Because these systems differ from question and answer (Q&A) systems, chatbots, and simple task-oriented assistants, new methods for evaluating such collaborative computer systems are needed. Here, we present a set of criteria for evaluating these systems, called Hallmarks of Human-Machine Collaboration. The Hallmarks build on the success of heuristic evaluation used by the user interface community and past evaluation techniques used in the spoken language and chatbot communities. They consist of observable characteristics indicative of successful collaborative communication, grouped into eight high-level properties: robustness; habitability; mutual contribution of meaningful content; context-awareness; consistent human engagement; provision of rationale; use of elementary concepts to teach and learn new concepts; and successful collaboration. We present examples of how we used these Hallmarks in the DARPA Communicating with Computers (CwC) program to evaluate diverse activities, including story and music generation, interactive building with blocks, and exploration of molecular mechanisms in cancer. We used the Hallmarks as guides for developers and as diagnostics, assessing systems with the Hallmarks to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement using logs from user studies, surveying the human partner, third-party review of creative products, and direct tests. Informal feedback from CwC technology developers indicates that the use of the Hallmarks for program evaluation helped guide development. The Hallmarks also made it possible to identify areas of progress and major gaps in developing systems where the machine is an equal, creative partner.

Coding update of the SMFM definition of low risk for cesarean delivery from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM.

In 2015, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine developed a low risk for cesarean delivery definition based on administrative claims-based diagnosis codes described by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine definition is a clinical enrichment of 2 available measures from the Joint Commission and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality measures. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine measure excludes diagnosis codes that represent clinically relevant risk factors that are absolute or relative contraindications to vaginal birth while retaining diagnosis codes such as labor disorders that are discretionary risk factors for cesarean delivery. The introduction of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification in October 2015 expanded the number of available diagnosis codes and enabled a greater depth and breadth of clinical description. These coding improvements further enhance the clinical validity of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine definition and its potential utility in tracking progress toward the goal of safely lowering the US cesarean delivery rate. This report updates the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine definition of low risk for cesarean delivery using International Statistical Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification coding.

Comparing variation in hospital rates of cesarean delivery among low-risk women using 3 different measures.

This report describes the development of a measure of low-risk cesarean delivery by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM). Safely lowering the cesarean delivery rate is a priority for maternity care clinicians and health care delivery systems. Therefore, hospital quality assurance programs are increasingly tracking cesarean delivery rates among low-risk pregnancies. Two commonly used definitions of "low risk" are available, the Joint Commission (JC) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) measures, but these measures are not clinically comprehensive. We sought to refine the definition of the low-risk cesarean delivery rate to enhance the validity of the metric for quality measurement. We created this refined definition-called the SMFM definition-and compared it to the JC and AHRQ measures using claims-based data from the 2011 Nationwide Inpatient Sample of >863,000 births in 612 hospitals. Using these definitions, we calculated means and interquartile ranges (25th-75th percentile range) for hospital low-risk cesarean delivery rates, stratified by hospital size, teaching status, urban/rural location, and payer mix. Across all hospitals, the mean low-risk cesarean delivery rate was lowest for the SMFM definition (12.65%), but not substantially different from the JC and AHRQ measures (13.12% and 13.29%, respectively). We empirically examined the SMFM definition to ensure its validity and utility. This refined definition performs similarly to existing measures and has the added advantage of clinical perspective, enhanced face validity, and ease of use.

An isolated limb infusion technique: a guide for the perfusionist.

Isolated limb perfusion with the administration of cytotoxic drugs has been successfully used to treat melanomas of the extremity since it was first introduced in 1958. The use of hyperthermia (40 degrees C) combined with chemotherapy agents, primarily melphalan, has resulted in greater cytotoxicity in laboratory studies, which led to the application of hyperthermia in clinical studies during the 1960s. The effectiveness of this regional technique and the absence of any good systemic therapy made hyperthermic-isolated limb perfusion (HILP) the main treatment for patients with regionally advanced melanoma. HILP involves open surgical dissection and cannulation of the peripheral vessels and is associated with moderate morbidity rates. Blood transfusions, systemic drug leak, infection, and damage to the blood vessels and nerves are all potential hazards associated with this technique. Recently, however, there has been increased interest in an alternative technique termed isolated limb infusion (ILI), which was first reported in 1994 from the Sydney Melanoma Unit in Australia. Based on a few single institution experiences, it was found that there are fewer morbidities associated with HILP than with ILI but no compromise in patient outcomes. ILI is a less invasive procedure involving the use of angiographically placed catheters inserted percutaneously through the femoral vessels that does not require blood donor exposure or use of a heart lung machine. Preliminary data suggest that the resultant local hypoxia and acidosis induced by this procedure potentiates the cytotoxic effects of melphalan. Response rates comparing ILI to HILP seem similar, and both are markedly better than systemic chemotherapy. ILI may be a more desirable option because morbidity is greatly reduced and outcomes appear similar. There is a potential role for the perfusionist in the application of ILI, an evolving area of cancer therapy.

Numerous adrenal chromaffin cell preparations fail to produce analgesic effects in the formalin test or in tests of acute pain even with nicotine stimulation.

Previous studies have reported that intrathecal implants of a variety of adrenal chromaffin cell preparations all produce analgesic effects in rodents. The major objective of the present study was to determine if any adrenal chromaffin cell preparations produce more robust analgesic effects than other cell preparations. The present study included adult rat adrenal chromaffin tissue allografts, purified adult bovine chromaffin cells, and polymer-encapsulated calf adrenal chromaffin cells, all prepared according to previously published procedures, as well as purified calf adrenal chromaffin cells. Previous studies have also suggested that immunosuppression may play a role in graft survival, and potentially increase the magnitude of analgesic effects, so the present study included both immunosuppressed and non-immunosuppressed groups (cyclosporin A, 10 mg/kg per day). Behavioral tests included the formalin test; and a dorsal tail-flick, hot-plate, and paw-pinch test, conducted sequentially 2 min after systemic nicotine (0.1 mg/kg) to evoke release from the chromaffin cells, as previously reported. Analgesic effects related to morphine and nicotine were detected, and consistent differences in performance could be detected between individual animals. Surprisingly, no analgesic effects were detectable with any of the four chromaffin cell preparations, with or without immunosuppression, in the formalin test or with nicotine stimulation in tests of acute pain.