Disaster medical education for pharmacy students using video recordings of practical disaster drills.

INTRODUCTION: This study created video-based educational materials for pharmacists' disaster response using video recordings of disaster drills to evaluate the feasibility of online education for teaching evacuation shelter management. METHODS: Video materials were created from an actual disaster drill held at the Hirakata campus of Setsunan University and were provided to second-year pharmacy students as part of their classes. We conducted a questionnaire survey before and after the video intervention to evaluate participants' attitudes toward providing support during disasters, awareness of pharmacists' role in disaster relief, and willingness to participate in disaster drills. RESULTS: A comparison of the pre- and post-intervention questionnaire results showed that the intervention enhanced participants' understanding of pharmacists' role in disaster medicine. The factor analysis, cluster analysis, and the amount of change showed that the video materials vividly conveyed the confusion of a disaster to the participants and helped them imagine experiencing and responding to a disaster. CONCLUSION: The findings showed the feasibility of using video-based educational materials to vividly convey the chaos that challenges medical personnel during disaster-response efforts. This method provides a safe way to prepare students who might be called upon to work in emergency conditions and stimulate interest in disaster medicine. Ideally, this and similar interventions will become part of an extensive toolbox of empirically-based disaster preparedness educational materials.

Miniaturization and High-Density Arrangement of Microcantilevers in Proximity and Tactile Sensor for Dexterous Gripping Control.

In this paper, in order to perform delicate and advanced grip control like human, a proximity and tactile combination sensor using miniaturized microcantilevers one-fifth the size of previous one as the detection part was newly developed. Microcantilevers were arranged with higher spatial density than in previous works and an interdigitated array electrode to enhance light sensitivity was added. It is found that the interdigitated array electrode can detect light with 1.6 times higher sensitivity than that in previous works and the newly fabricated microcantilevers have enough sensitivity to applied normal and shear loads. Therefore, more accurate detection of proximity distance and spatial distribution of contact force become available for dexterous gripping control to prevent 'overshooting', 'force control error', and 'slipping'.

Bluetooth Roaming for Sensor Network System in Clinical Environment.

A sensor network is key infrastructure for advancing a hospital information system (HIS). The authors proposed a method to provide roaming functionality for Bluetooth to realize a Bluetooth-based sensor network, which is suitable to connect clinical devices. The proposed method makes the average response time of a Bluetooth connection less than one second by making the master device repeat the inquiry process endlessly and modifies parameters of the inquiry process. The authors applied the developed sensor network for daily clinical activities in an university hospital, and confirmed the stabilitya and effectiveness of the sensor network. As Bluetooth becomes a quite common wireless interface for medical devices, the proposed protocol that realizes Bluetooth-based sensor network enables HIS to equip various clinical devices and, consequently, lets information and communication technologies advance clinical services.

Impact of position tracking on the outpatient navigation system.

Reduction of waiting time of patients and idle time of doctors is one of the most important factors of outpatient ward management. Although conventional in-hospital outpatient navigation and re-scheduling systems free the patients from waiting rooms, the systems often cause additional idle times for the doctors and even several clinical incidents. This paper designed a new patient navigation and re-scheduling system equips position tracking. The authors introduced the system into Kyoto University Hospital. As a result, the system decreased more than 100 hours a day of wasted time and irritations of the patients and the clinical staffs. The results tell that the context-aware feature makes not only the system user friendly but also the users friendly.

The proposal of measurement of RNs at acute care setting cognitive process when they make cognitive error.

This paper presents the proposal for the design of a measurement of cognitive process of nurses at acute care setting when they make cognitive error. nurses especially at acute care setting perform their numerous nursing tasks simultaneously in time-stressed, information-rich situation. To cope with these severe cognitive demands expertise nurses develop simplification strategies not to consume their mental resources so much. However medical errors happen, regardless of nurses' experience. The resource allocation theory of Norman and Bobrow suggests that inappropriate selection of simplification strategy when the task is needed more attention induce the cognitive error. In this paper too much mental workload is presumed one of the reasons to make inappropriate selection. And the study design to measure cognitive process under the different mental workload situation by talk aloud protocol and psycho-physiological response is proposed.