Exploring E-cigarettes: Ingredients, Health Effects, and Considerations for Use

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes are becoming an increasingly popular nicotine delivery system, especially among adolescents and college aged students. They appeal to this population because they are new, are convenient to use, have appealing flavors, and are viewed as a cleaner, safer alternative to cigarettes. However, there are known ingredients in both the e-cigarette solution and vapors that have significant health effects and it is becoming an emerging public health issue that needs to be addressed. There is a gap in the knowledge about the potential harmful effects of e-cigarettes on both the part of the user and the healthcare providers who may need to counsel a user of e-cigarettes, since a lot of evidence is still emerging related to the health effects of e-cigarette use. To address this gap in knowledge, this paper summarizes some of the literature related to e-cigarette use, their health and safety effects that could be used to inform both users and healthcare providers, specifically nurses and nurse practitioners. There is still much to be learned about the long-term effects of e-cigarette use and what healthcare providers can do to minimize those effects

Impact of Mobile and Wireless Technology on Healthcare Delivery services

Modern healthcare delivery services embrace the use of leading edge technologies and new scientific discoveries to enable better cures for diseases and better means to enable early detection of most life-threatening diseases. The healthcare industry is finding itself in a state of turbulence and flux. The major innovations lie with the use of information technologies and particularly, the adoption of mobile and wireless applications in healthcare delivery [1]. Wireless devices are becoming increasingly popular across the healthcare field, enabling caregivers to review patient records and test results, enter diagnosis information during patient visits and consult drug formularies, all without the need for a wired network connection [2]. A pioneering medical-grade, wireless infrastructure supports complete mobility throughout the full continuum of healthcare delivery. It facilitates the accurate collection and the immediate dissemination of patient information to physicians and other healthcare care professionals at the time of clinical decision-making, thereby ensuring timely, safe, and effective patient care. This paper investigates the wireless technologies that can be used for medical applications, and the effectiveness of such wireless solutions in a healthcare environment. It discusses challenges encountered; and concludes by providing recommendations on policies and standards for the use of such technologies within hospitals

Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community: A Post-disaster Group Work Intervention for Healthcare and Social Service Providers

Healthcare and social service providers play a critical role in supporting children, families and communities immediately after a disaster and throughout the recovery process. These providers, who may have also experienced the disaster and related losses, are among the least likely to receive mental health or psychological support which can result in burnout, secondary traumatic stress, depression and anxiety. Accessible psychosocial interventions designed for healthcare and social service providers in the aftermath of a disaster are therefore critical to recovery and to ensure providers are available to support families after future disasters. The purpose of this article is to describe Resilience and Coping for the Healthcare Community (RCHC), a manualized group work intervention for social service and health care providers who have provided care to children, families, and communities after a natural disaster. RCHC is currently being delivered in response to Hurricanes Harvey and Maria, storms that struck the gulf coast of the United States and the island of Puerto Rico in 2017. RCHC has also been used in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy (New York and New Jersey), in Shreveport, Louisiana following severe flooding and in Saipan after a Typhoon devastated the island. Healthcare and social service providers who have received RCHC include the staff of Federally Qualified Health Centers and other community clinics, Disaster Case Managers, Child Care Providers, Mental Health Providers and First Responders. The health and wellbeing of these providers directly impacts their ability to provide quality care to families in their communities. This article presents the theoretical foundations of the RCHC intervention, describes the intervention in detail, provides a description of early and ongoing evaluation studies, and discusses the conditions for both implementation of RCHC and training of RCHC providers. The RCHC psychoeducational intervention provides education on, and strategies for, acute, chronic and post-traumatic stress, coping, and resilience, tailored for the needs of the helping professions. Through the use of individual and collective processing, healthcare and social service providers participating in RCHC develop both individual and collective coping plans. Considering the short and long-term impacts of disasters on communities’ essential healthcare and social service workforce, interventions like RCHC stand to provide essential benefits, including retention and wellbeing of providers of family services

Mobile phone-based healthcare delivery in a Sami area: Reflections on technology and culture\ud

This paper analyses the redesign of psychiatric services for children and\ud adolescents in a Sami area in the county of Finnmark in Norway. The project\ud included the introduction of a new technology in support of a decentralized model\ud for healthcare service delivery. We focus specifically on the role of culture in the\ud development and implementation of a mobile phone application during the pilot\ud phase of the project. In our analysis we draw on information infrastructure theory.\ud We are in particular interested in the concept of generativity and critically assess\ud its role of in the analysis of technology in a culturally diverse context

Population Health Research: Early Description of the Organizational Shift Toward Population Health Management and Defining a Vision for Leadership.

As health care delivery systems adapt to the changing marketplace, many struggle to define a clear strategy that will prove successful in managing the health of entire populations. The federal government continues to put increasing pressure on organizations to shift away from the traditional way of delivering episodic care and move toward managing populations as a whole-before, during, and after a patient presents in a health care facility. Private payers have begun to follow suit as risk-based payer contracts and bundled payment models become increasingly popular. For organizations to adequately influence the health outcomes of a population, they must be responsible for more than just a patient\u27s medical care. They must partner with the community to create a strategy that encompasses the psychosocial and environmental factors that contribute to one\u27s health. Although health care leaders know this industry transformation is imminent, there is minimal research that shares best practices in regard to designing and implementing a successful population health management strategy. Interviews were conducted with leadership from 10 organizations in order to understand the strategic approach taken by delivery systems and health care institutions that view population health as a key aspect of their overall mission. Responses were recorded and outlined in a detailed response grid. The objective is to provide a qualitative overview of how industry leaders are currently responding to population health. Additionally, common themes and recommendations are presented to serve as guidance for other health care organizations that are at the start of their journey toward population health management

Bioengineered Textiles and Nonwovens – the convergence of bio-miniaturisation and electroactive conductive polymers for assistive healthcare, portable power and design-led wearable technology

Today, there is an opportunity to bring together creative design activities to exploit the responsive and adaptive ‘smart’ materials that are a result of rapid development in electro, photo active polymers or OFEDs (organic thin film electronic devices), bio-responsive hydrogels, integrated into MEMS/NEMS devices and systems respectively. Some of these integrated systems are summarised in this paper, highlighting their use to create enhanced functionality in textiles, fabrics and non-woven large area thin films. By understanding the characteristics and properties of OFEDs and bio polymers and how they can be transformed into implementable physical forms, innovative products and services can be developed, with wide implications. The paper outlines some of these opportunities and applications, in particular, an ambient living platform, dealing with human centred needs, of people at work, people at home and people at play. The innovative design affords the accelerated development of intelligent materials (interactive, responsive and adaptive) for a new product & service design landscape, encompassing assistive healthcare (smart bandages and digital theranostics), ambient living, renewable energy (organic PV and solar textiles), interactive consumer products, interactive personal & beauty care (e-Scent) and a more intelligent built environment

Expanding Use of Magnesium Sulfate for Treatment of Pre-eclampsia and Eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia/eclampsia is a serious condition that can develop during pregnancy, even in women with no risk factors. Although there is little understanding of what causes pre-eclampsia/eclampsia, there is an effective treatment for this condition which, if left untreated, can progress to coma and death. In 1994, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended magnesium sulfate as the standard treatment for pre-eclampsia and eclampsia and within two years it was placed on WHO's Essential Medicines List. Despite its known efficacy, this inexpensive drug is often underutilized, in part because the diffusion of innovation takes time but also because of the service delivery challenges inherent to the use of magnesium sulfate—it requires a strong and effective referral system, often a challenge in under-resourced health systems. The underutilization of magnesium sulfate has been a recognized problem in Nigeria for some time; prior to 2007 there was almost no magnesium sulfate in the country.The significant contribution of pre-eclampsia/eclampsia to maternal mortality in Nigeria—along with the promise of magnesium sulfate as a solution—caught the attention of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2005 when a program officer overheard a conversation between two Nigerian doctors who were lamenting the failure of a piece of equipment in their hospital laboratory that was used for manufacturing magnesium sulfate. Without it, one was saying to the other, they would have no supply of the drug to treat pre-eclampsia/eclampsia and no way to save women's lives. The Foundation decided to fund a series of grants to expand the use of magnesium sulfate for pre-eclampsia/eclampsia in Nigeria and, in 2014, commissioned an evaluation of that work. This case study describes the findings of the evaluation, including the challenges encountered while implementing the projects, the successes achieved, and existing opportunities for future scaling up of the services across the country

A derivative-free approach for a simulation-based optimization problem in healthcare

Hospitals have been challenged in recent years to deliver high quality care with limited resources. Given the pressure to contain costs,developing procedures for optimal resource allocation becomes more and more critical in this context. Indeed, under/overutilization of emergency room and ward resources can either compromise a hospital's ability to provide the best possible care, or result in precious funding going toward underutilized resources. Simulation--based optimization tools then help facilitating the planning and management of hospital services, by maximizing/minimizing some specific indices (e.g. net profit) subject to given clinical and economical constraints. In this work, we develop a simulation--based optimization approach for the resource planning of a specific hospital ward. At each step, we first consider a suitably chosen resource setting and evaluate both efficiency and satisfaction of the restrictions by means of a discrete--event simulation model. Then, taking into account the information obtained by the simulation process, we use a derivative--free optimization algorithm to modify the given setting. We report results for a real--world problem coming from the obstetrics ward of an Italian hospital showing both the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed approach