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Biomedical subjects

J C Simmons

Publications and source records attributed to J C Simmons.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Partnering to promote and enhance medication safety.

Addressing medication errors and supporting medication safety has become an important quality initiative. But are hospitals and health systems using the best practices that are available today to order, dispense, and monitor medications for patients. Many are finding that they can achieve a stronger medication safety program through collaboration. This issue looks at how hospitals and health systems are partnering--with other hospitals and health systems locally and nationally, health plans, health care purchasing groups, universities, vendors, and even patients--to reduce the likelihood of medication errors.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed2002

Health organizations look to 'higher ground' to reduce turnover, achieve quality care.

Using the terms "spirit," "soul," and "inspiration" in the same sentence with health care could make various health care leaders uncomfortable. But, some health care organizations are looking to the concept of "Higher Ground Leadership" to help management and staff find out how they can find fulfillment in their jobs--and even their personal lives--by "re-awakening their spirits and values." Some are finding that producing a happier and more committed workforce is producing lower turnover--with related stronger financial bottom lines.

Colorado↗
PubMed2001

Incorporating new (mind/body, alternative, complementary, or integrative) medicine into everyday care.

Use of a variety of therapies and techniques--ranging from acupuncture to yoga to herbal therapies--that are designed to relieve medical conditions and illnesses and/or emphasize the mind, body, and spirit connections are gaining popularity among patients in the United States. For years, many hospitals, plans, clinicians, and insurers ignored these therapies when using "conventional" therapies. But, times are changing: A movement is now afoot to determine whether these therapies and techniques can be successfully integrated with current health care treatments to provide quality care to patients.

Complementary Therapies↗
PubMed2001

Improving care and quality of life for all asthma patients.

Asthma is an expensive chronic disease that today affects at least 5 percent of the American population. Oftentimes, many patients are failing to properly manage their conditions. It is no surprise, therefore, that many health care providers are looking for ways to help asthma patients better manage their care, use the most effective medications for their conditions, avoid costly emergency room or hospital visits, and improve their day-to-day quality of life. Sometimes, though, providers still face many challenges such as working with populations that experience poverty and poor social support, lack regular sources of health care, or face environmental situations that aggravate their conditions. However, many are finding out that innovative steps can be taken to help all asthma patients receive effective quality care.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Creating a safer workplace to provide quality care.

In recent years, increasing interest has been placed on how health care workers can be trained and equipped to better protect them from possible workplace accidents and injuries while improving the care they deliver. Better workplace safety also means better customer and employee satisfaction, improved workforce retention and recruitment, and cost savings. Workplace safety is constantly evolving and addresses a whole host of issues ranging from needles and sharps injuries to moving patients to human factor analyses. This issue takes a cross-sectional look at how hospitals and health systems are addressing problem areas--and sharing information and best practices--to strengthen their quality of care at the workplace level.

Ergonomics↗
PubMed2001

Managing health care variability to achieve quality care.

While much has been written about variation and health care, one area that has received little attention is variation within hospitals related to the operations management--which can lead to wasted money and human resources. Two Boston researchers who have been studying this area say that addressing these variations--and using techniques found in other major industries across the country--could give hospitals a new tool in addressing patient safety issues, nursing shortages, cost containment, and overall better quality of care.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2001

Creating portals to quality: how the Internet is changing health care delivery to consumers.

The number of Americans visiting health care sites on the Internet has steadily increased every year. However, while many say the sites are helpful, more are looking to these sites to change from static to interactive--to provide information tailored to their needs, to enhance self-care, to encourage better provider communication, and to aid in lifestyle management. Some health care organizations are beginning to provide new services that promise to give e-health a new look.

Community Participation↗
PubMed2001

Going outside the box: finding new ways to provide quality care to children and adolescents.

When it comes to providing better health care for children and teens, sometimes the health care system need to go outside the box and consider cutting across other settings such as schools, homes, and community organizations. This means that health care leaders need to keep goals in mind--to incorporate more approaches such as talking to teens about issues such as safe sex, smoking, or drinking or to improve ways to provide appropriate care at opportune times.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Re-examining blood use to improve quality care.

With escalating costs and restrictions on who can donate blood, the issue of blood use among health care facilities has managed to attract recent headlines. The basic concerns over blood use, availability, safety, and quality are not necessarily new or unique in this day and age. However, finding better ways to meet these ongoing challenges--through better standardization and improved data--have been slower in coming than in other sectors of the health care arena. But, times are changing. Examples are emerging of what can be done by hospitals, health systems, health plans, and other providers to achieve quality care--even when faced with limited supplies of blood and blood products. And, with the tensions arising between supply and demand, hospitals also are beginning to pay closer attention to bloodless--or transfusion-free--medicine and surgery.

Blood Banks↗
PubMed2001

Pain management: new initiatives arise to provide quality care.

During the past decade, many advances have been made in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of pain. However, undertreatment of pain among all population groups is still a nationwide problem. Changes, though, are occurring this year, with many hospitals, health systems, and health plans placing pain management on the top of their patient agendas--due in part to the introduction of new pain management standards by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. This issue looks at how health care providers are working together across the country to make those changes--and meet JCAHO standards--while fulfilling the needs of their patient populations through innovative pain assessment and management strategies.

Child↗
PubMed2001

How root-cause analysis can improve patient safety.

A key to improving patient safety and providing quality care is identifying, reporting, reviewing, and addressing the problems that are related to adverse events and close calls. A tool that has evolved to meet this need is the use of root-cause analysis (RCA). But can more be done with the RCA to make it work smoothly within a health care setting--while providing useful information in a timely manner that health care organizations can act upon? Staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs involved with patient safety think so. Last month, they discussed numerous initiatives--ranging from "triage cards" to redesigned software applications to redefined leadership roles--that are giving a new edge to using RCA effectively throughout the 170-plus VA health care facilities across the country.

Hospitals, Veterans↗
PubMed2001

Taking a systemwide approach to improving quality care.

For the past decade, health insurer Anthem has been working with more than 300 hospitals in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana in a quality program designed to help them better use clinical data, monitoring, outcomes, and best practices to improve care in their facilities and promote patient safety. The results have been stimulation of new quality programs at the hospital level and a sense of partnership.

Benchmarking↗
PubMed2001

Addressing diversity in the health care setting to achieve quality care.

As the American population becomes more diverse, the hospitals, health plans, and other providers across the country that provide health care to these population groups are meeting new challenges. But, addressing diversity within the health care setting means looking at a variety of issues from determining if competent and appropriate care is being provided, how health care providers are being educated to respond to diversity, and whether the health care environment is conducive to meeting the needs of the diverse population.

Community Networks↗
PubMed2000

Infectious diseases pose new pressures but provide new opportunities for health care.

Many hospitals are beginning to make inroads in lowering the rates of infections occurring throughout their facilities. However, the emergence of new drug-resistant organisms, shorter stays in hospitals, greater reliance on out-patient care, sicker patients, and increasing numbers of invasive surgical procedures still stir new concerns about the problems posed by infectious diseases.

Communicable Disease Control↗
PubMed1997

Indomethacin attenuates the renal actions of atrial natriuretic factor in dogs with chronic heart failure.

The interaction between renal prostaglandins and atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) for the regulation of renal hemodynamic and excretory function was examined in conscious dogs with arteriovenous fistula and chronic compensated high-output heart failure (n = 6). After two control clearance periods, 100 ng/kg/min ANF was administered for the duration of the study. After two clearance periods with ANF infusions, 10 mg/kg indomethacin intravenous bolus was given, and three additional clearance periods were obtained. Atrial natriuretic factor alone increased sodium excretion from a baseline of 25 +/- 7 microEq/min to 158 +/- 24 microEq/min (P < 0.05), whereas creatinine clearance was elevated by 9 mL/min (P < 0.05). Indomethacin reduced ANF-induced sodium excretion and creatinine clearance by 75% (P < 0.05) and 35% (P < 0.05), respectively. In a time control series in dogs with arteriovenous fistula (n = 4), indomethacin vehicle did not alter ANF-induced natriuresis or renal hemodynamic function. These results suggest a modulatory role of the prostaglandins on the renal response to ANF infusions in this canine model of compensated heart failure.

Aldosterone↗
PubMed1995

Atrial natriuretic peptide fragments in dogs with experimental heart failure.

1. This study in the canine arteriovenous (AV) fistula model of high-output heart failure (HOHF) evaluated the chronic temporal changes in plasma ANF and pro ANF 31-67 and their relationship to body-fluid balance and the renin-aldosterone axis. In addition, the haemodynamic, hormonal and renal excretory effects of synthetic pro ANF 31-67 infusions were examined in normal and AV fistula dogs with compensated HOHF. 2. Following the construction of the AV fistula, the dogs exhibited chronic parallel elevations in right atrial pressure and the plasma concentrations of ANF and pro ANF 31-67. The gradual increases in the two peptides were associated with a gradual decrease in plasma renin activity and the re-establishment of sodium balance. 3. In normal and compensated AV fistula dogs, synthetic pro ANF 31-67 produced similar significant reductions in arterial blood pressure, right atrial pressure and elevations in urinary sodium excretion. These effects were not associated with increases in plasma or urinary cyclic GMP (cGMP). 4. These results suggest that the elevation in the endogenous circulating levels of pro ANF 31-67 in the AV fistula dogs may represent one chronic adaptive mechanism to achieve body fluid homeostasis. Furthermore, via potentially different mechanisms of action, ANF and pro ANF 31-67 may coordinate and contribute to the regulation of haemodynamic and renal function during physiological and pathophysiological situations.

Animals↗
PubMed1995

L-arginine analogues inhibit aldosterone secretion in rats.

L-Arginine analogues, e.g., NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), increase arterial pressure and suppress renin release in the rat. On the basis of these observations, it was hypothesized that L-arginine analogues also would attenuate aldosterone secretion. This hypothesis was tested in anesthetized rats treated with L-NAME or NG-nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA, 185 mumol/kg ip). The aldosterone secretion rate, plasma renin activity, and adrenal blood flow were attenuated in rats treated with L-NAME and L-NNA compared with control animals. Similar experiments were performed in anephric rats to examine the effects of L-NAME on aldosterone secretion independent of the circulating reninangiotensin system. The administration of L-NAME reduced adrenal blood flow but failed to reduce aldosterone secretion in these anephric rats. Bilateral nephrectomy reduced plasma renin activity essentially to undetectable levels in these animals. In a third series of experiments, two groups of anephric rats were infused with angiotensin II (3 micrograms/kg body wt iv) to provide a stimulus for aldosterone secretion. Aldosterone secretion and adrenal blood flow were markedly reduced in angiotensin II-infused rats pretreated with L-NAME compared with the control anephric animals infused with angiotensin II. Overall these results suggest that L-arginine analogues attenuate aldosterone secretion by inhibiting the adrenal steroidogenic effects of endogenous or exogenous angiotensin II and/or by reducing plasma levels of renin/angiotensin.

Aldosterone↗