Patient Safety Law: Regulatory Change in Britain and Canada

Did governments in different countries regulate common concerns about patient safety differently? If so how and why did they do this? This thesis undertakes a historical comparison of the regulation of patient safety in Britain and Canada between 1980 and 2005. These jurisdictions began the period with very similar regulatory frameworks, but by 2005 there were distinct differences in each jurisdiction‘s regulatory response to patient safety. Britain was very actively regulating all aspects of service provision within its health system in the name of patient safety, whereas Canada‘s regulatory direction showed adherence to the 1980s model with only scattered incremental developments. This thesis assesses the broader sociopolitical context and the structure of the health systems in each jurisdiction and concludes there are differences in the logics of these systems that established a foundation for future regulatory divergence. It is argued that between 1980 and 2005 there were two factors that influenced regulatory directionality in each jurisdiction: changing political norms associated with the development of neoliberalism and the New Public Management; and events or scandals associated with the provision of health services. The differing levels of penetration of both the changing political norms into governance cultures and of scandals into the public and political consciousness are critical to explaining regulatory differences between jurisdictions. The thesis concludes that what and how governments chose to regulate is a function of the perceived need for action and the dominant social and political norms within that society. Context is everything in the formulation of regulatory approaches to address pressing social problems

Celebrating nursing student innovation and creativity: an approach to bridge the theory-practice gap through quality improvement proposals to improve healthcare.

In this article, the authors provide an overview of their innovative assessment approach for the "Effective Leadership for Healthcare (Theory 6)" module at Edinburgh Napier University. The new module enabled final year students to develop new and innovative quality improvement proposals to improve care, and to discuss these with industry partners

Air pollution disasters: liability issues in negligence associated with the provision of Personal Protective Interventions (facemasks)

Disasters may impact air quality through the generation of high levels of potentially pathogenic particulate matter (PM), for example, in a volcanic eruption. Depending on the concentrations of particles in the air, their size and composition, and the duration of exposure, high levels of PM can create significant public health issues. It has been argued that air pollution, in and of itself, is a public health crisis. One possible intervention to reduce exposure to high levels of PM during an air pollution disaster (APD) is using facemasks. However, agencies may be reluctant to recommend or distribute facemasks for community use during APDs for a variety of reasons, including concerns about liability. There has been no analysis of these concerns. This paper analyzes whether agencies may have a legal duty of care in negligence to provide warnings about the health risks associated with APDs and/or to recommend facemasks as a protective mechanism for community use to reduce exposure to PM. It is also the first to examine the potential for liability in negligence, when a decision is made to distribute facemasks for community use during an APD and the receiver alleges that they sustained a personal injury and seeks compensation

Engineering In Situ Soil and Plant Microbiomes To Improve Agricultural Productivity

The world’s population is predicted to reach 9 billion people by 2050 thus increasing crop production on current agricultural land to meet the rising demand for food is paramount. Farmers routinely manage both plant and soil nutrition to increase crop yields. However, active management of in situ soil and plant microbiomes to improve productivity is uncommon. Here, we present a patented technology aiming to reliably engineer soil and plant microbiomes to increase crop production. Bioprime is a ferment of molasses that can be applied as seed coating, or as foliar and soil spray

A Fast and Inexpensive Molecular Biological Assay to Assess Soil Health

Soil health and biology is capturing public imagination due to its significance in organic and regenerative agriculture and its role in mitigating climate change (a location for potential carbon sequestration). Programs centred on soil health are supported by farmers and funding bodies such as the Soil Biology Initiative (Grains Research and Development Corporation), the National Landcare Program, and the Cooperative Research Centre for High Performance Soils. Additionally, global businesses are diverting resources into understanding soil and crop microbiomes to develop novel technologies that increase soil health and crop productivity to commercialise a variety of products including soil amendments (e.g. sea weeds, humic acids, other prebiotics) or microbial inocula (often termed “biologicals”, “probiotics”, “biopesticides”, or “biofungicides”)

Self-Management of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Adolescents

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a condition of unknown aetiology that commonly follows an infection. There are no known predictors for recovery or established treatments. At the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, Australia, the majority of young people with CFS are provided with symptom management and lifestyle guidance in an outpatient setting. However, for some, educational or social issues preclude progress and for those who request this assistance, since 2012, the Victorian Paediatric Rehabilitation Service has offered an Intensive Self-Management Program. For this program, participants engage in both group and individual sessions, attending 3 days per week for 4 weeks in small groups of 3–4. Interdisciplinary input is from Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Education and Psychology to assist with goal setting and strategies. Outcome measures are obtained at initial assessment, 6 weeks and 6 months post-program. Support is offered for 12 months post-program. For both the outpatient program and the intensive program the outcomes and feedback from patient and family has influenced the approach and focus. This chapter outlines the current approach and how it has evolved over time

The Right to Health in Evidence-based Policymaking

The right to health is included in United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) number 3, “Good health and well-being”. This goal aims to ensure healthy life and to promote well-being for all, at all ages. The SDGs, which build on the Millennial Development Goals (MDGs), provide a significant expansion to the development agenda. Inclusive development is part and parcel of the SDGs. Evidence-based policymaking studies provide explanations of normative and legitimate expectations for policymakers, namely, to use scientific evidence and specific indicators in their policymaking process. The right to health, as constructed, in evidence-based policymaking discourse is in contention. This paper addresses the various types of meaning Indonesian policymakers attach to the right to health through their discourses in norms of health policy. This study provides an analysis of discourses, regulatory analysis, and historical narratives (based on analysis of health regulations and newspaper articles) pertaining to evidence-informed policy in the health sector in Indonesia from 2009-2017. Our findings elucidate how the right to health manifests in the processes of evidence-based policymaking. We do so by way of a two-pronged analysis, i) discourse analysis at the macro level in Indonesia about the right to health as a norm and ii) health policymaking at the micro level, in the Indonesian district of Gunungkidul,within the region of Yogyakarta

Sex, stress and sleep apnoea: decreased susceptibility to upper airway muscle dysfunction following intermittent hypoxia in females

Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is a devastating respiratory control disorder more common in men than women. The reasons for the sex difference in prevalence are multifactorial, but are partly attributable to protective effects of oestrogen. Indeed, OSAS prevalence increases in post-menopausal women. OSAS is characterized by repeated occlusions of the pharyngeal airway during sleep. Dysfunction of the upper airway muscles controlling airway calibre and collapsibility is implicated in the pathophysiology of OSAS, and sex differences in the neuro-mechanical control of upper airway patency are described. It is widely recognized that chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH), a cardinal feature of OSAS due to recurrent apnoea, drives many of the morbid consequences characteristic of the disorder. In rodents, exposure to CIH-related redox stress causes upper airway muscle weakness and fatigue, associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Of interest, in adults, there is female resilience to CIH-induced muscle dysfunction. Conversely, exposure to CIH in early life, results in upper airway muscle weakness equivalent between the two sexes at 3 and 6 weeks of age. Ovariectomy exacerbates the deleterious effects of exposure to CIH in adult female upper airway muscle, an effect partially restored by oestrogen replacement therapy. Intriguingly, female advantage intrinsic to upper airway muscle exists with evidence of substantially greater loss of performance in male muscle during acute exposure to severe hypoxic stress. Sex differences in upper airway muscle physiology may have relevance to human OSAS. The oestrogen–oestrogen receptor α axis represents a potential therapeutic target in OSAS, particularly in post-menopausal women

Understanding Cloud Requirements - A Supply Chain Lifecycle Approach

Cloud Computing is offering competitive advantages to companies through flexible and, scalable access to computing resources. More and more companies are moving to cloud environments; therefore understanding the requirements for this process is both important and beneficial. The requirements for migrating from a traditional computing environment to a cloud hosting environment are discussed in this paper, considering this migration from a supply chain lifecycle perspective. The cloud supply chain is examined from a lifecycle perspective for the management of the migration project. This paper illustrates the requirements that need to be considered when adopting a cloud migration strategy and the steps to take in order to manage this process