Trabajando por la seguridad de los pacientes: puesta en marcha de un Grupo de Trabajo sobre Errores de Medicación / Working for patient safety: starting Teamwork on Medication Errors

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[Antimicrobial drug use in the department of internal medicine of a general hospital: prevalence study]. / Uso de los antimicrobianos en el Servicio de Medicina Interna de un hospital general: estudio de prevalencia.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the general pattern of hospital antimicrobial use, costs, and adequacy of treatment in the department of internal medicine of a general hospital. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A prevalence study was carried out and all department beds were visited. Every patient who was being treated with antimicrobials during or 24 hours prior to the visit was selected for the study. Treatment was considered adequate when indication, selected drug, dosage, and treatment duration were all adequate. When considering costs, only the price of the antimicrobials was evaluated. RESULTS: We identify 173 hospitalized patients, 79 (45.6%) of them were treated with 96 antimicrobial agents. The prevalence of community-acquired and hospital-acquired infections was 39.3% and 8.1%, respectively. Empirical use amounted to 77%. Overall, b-lactams antibiotics were the most frequently used (63.5%). In 22 (27.8%) patients treatment was judged inadequate, the most frequent error being an excessive duration (17.8%). The daily spending on antimicrobials was 187,750 ptas., representing 1,085 ptas. per hospitalized patient and day. CONCLUSIONS: A high percentage of hospitalized patients receive treatment with antimicrobial drugs. Because of the low rate of antimicrobials with a specific indication, the long antibiotic course duration, the incorrect drug choice, and even more the antimicrobial prescription in non-infected patients, strategies to improve the quality of antimicrobial use are clearly required

[Experimental surgical model of hydrocele for the use of sclerotherapy]. / Modelo quirúrgico experimental de hidrocele para el empleo de la escleroterapia.

Sclerosant therapy for different pathological conditions (testicular hydrocele, pneumothorax) is a little known and scantily used procedure in the clinical setting. We have developed a surgical procedure in the dog that permits reproducing adult hydrocele. This experimental model is useful for morphometric assessment of the sclerosant effects of the commonly used agents (magnesium silicate hydrate, carbolic acid, ethanolamine oleate, hydroxytetracycline chlorhydrate and quinacrine chlorhydrate). Our results show that the degree of sclerosis achieved with quinacrine and hydrotetracycline is significantly superior to that obtained with other agents.