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Biomedical subjects

R W Tallon

Publications and source records attributed to R W Tallon.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

Automated medication dispensing systems.

Threefold pressures to control hospital costs, improve professional staff performance and maximize medical quality motivate health systems managers to continually reassess the potential role of automated medication dispensing systems. Nurse managers become intimately involved in this assessment and reassessment process and must understand both the varied performance variables and the total health system implementation challenges presented by each of the available systems.

Automation↗
PubMed1996

Computer-based patient records--hype versus reality.

Although growing in capacity, few of today's computer-based patient records (CPR) systems satisfy all the key requirements defined by the Institute of Medicine. This current vacuum, however, should not frustrate us but rather stimulate our personal interest and creativity as to ways to best accomplish an optimal CPR solution in a very dynamic health care environment.

Guidelines as Topic↗
PubMed1996

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy: a technologic assessment.

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy, despite its short clinical history, has clearly established itself as the preferred surgical therapy for gallbladder removal in symptomatic patients. Significant questions remain, however, regarding the appropriate credentialing criteria for surgeons performing these procedures, the potential incidence of long-term complications, therapeutic guidelines for the assessment and intervention with patients with common duct stones and those select patient subgroups that can be optimally managed with medical, rather than surgical, therapy. The technology assessment team plays a critical role in helping to design mechanisms to answer these important outcomes inquiries.

Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic↗
PubMed1996

Chest pain observation units.

The key to technologic assessment of the chest pain unit lies in the recognition of the unit's ability to optimize outcomes of an illness with high incidence, high acute mortality and significant chronic morbidity. The chest pain observation unit, as an adjunct to the emergency department (ED), offers health managers and administrators the clinical tool, first envisioned by Dr. Lown in the 1960s, to achieve improved quality and cost-effectiveness of acute chest pain management as health care moves into a new century.

Chest Pain↗
PubMed1996

Electronic fetal monitoring.

Currently, recommendations regarding the marginal value of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) to the standard practice management of the patient in labor must be couched in qualifications regarding both patient tolerance for risk and health team uncertainty about practice guidelines for intermittent auscultation during pregnancy. If stresses on a maternity unit's manpower prevent strict registered nurse or nurse mid-wife compliance with an auscultatory monitoring program, then EFM may make both quality and health outcomes sense. If, on the other hand, the unit employs stringent patient care quality monitoring guidelines, then a course of intermittent auscultation may make both safety and cost-effectiveness sense.

Auscultation↗
PubMed1996

Support surfaces: therapeutic and performance insights.

Support surfaces (specially designed hospital mattresses) are becoming important aspects of a comprehensive patient care plan. However, their proper use requires a clear understanding of the relative advantages and disadvantages of different product types. Moreover, careful assessment of outcomes is essential as support surfaces represent a significant, incremental increase in the costs of care, and their misuse could actually contribute to patient morbidity.

Beds↗
PubMed1996

Wound care dressings.

Significant advances in wound healing technologies dramatically enhance the health provider's ability to achieve optimal wound healing. Maximal success in treating both pressure and skin ulcers, however, remains with the fundamental principles of moist wound healing, pressure relief, local and systemic infection control and adequate nutrition. Nurse executives are challenged to evaluate wound dressing technologies in the integrated clinical environment of comprehensive, scientifically validated, wound care clinical practice guidelines.

Bandages↗
PubMed1996

Oximetry: state-of-the-art.

Measuring arterial hemoglobin saturation via traditional arterial blood gas testing or co-oximetry complements the fundamental physical examination process. Within the last two decades, advancements in diagnostic technologies made possible the dynamic, noninvasive assessment of hemoglobin saturation through pulse oximetry. Technology assessment teams must determine the relative cost-effectiveness of these techniques and their effect on patient outcome.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed1996

Infusion pumps.

Confluence in technologic advances in medical electronics, the availability of new intravenous pharmaceuticals, increasing sophistication of home care delivery systems and the economic motivations imposed by Diagnosis-Related Groups and capitated care payment mechanisms stimulated dramatic developments in intravenous delivery technologies, both for the hospital and the outpatient environment. Success in the use of these sophisticated drug delivery systems, however, depends on appropriate patient selection, optimal selection of a delivery alternative and careful patient monitoring for both desired therapeutic response, health delivery quality and patient safety.

Humans↗
PubMed1994

ME changes: effects on patient care delivery.

The Health Care Financing Administration consolidated Durable Medical Equipment (DME) processing into four regional DME carriers for Medicare. These four DMERCs Durable Medical Equipment Regional Carriers (DMERCs) will process claims more accurately, reduce variations in coverage decisions, and decrease the opportunities for fraud. Taken in its entirety, the DME regionalization process is a major step toward achieving nationally consistent expectations for quality of care.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.↗