DRGs in Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy in Germany

Patients requiring transfusion medicine and hemotherapy in an inpatient setting are incorporated into the German Diagnosis Related Groups (G-DRG) system in multiple ways. Different DRGs exist in Major Diagnostic Category 16 for patients that have been admitted for the treatment of a condition from the field of transfusion medicine. However, the reimbursement might be not cost covering for many cases, and efforts have to be intensified to find adequate definitions and prices. We believe that this can only be successful if health service research is intensified in this field. For patients requiring hemotherapy and transfusion medicine concomitant to the treatment of an underlying disease such as cancer, multiple systems exist to increase remuneration, among them the Patient Clinical Complexity Level (PCCL) and complex constellations to induce DRG splits. For direct reimbursement of high cost products, additional remuneration fees (Zusatzentgelte, ZE) are the most important. In addition, expensive innovations not reflected within the DRGs can be reimbursed after application and negotiation of the New Diagnostic and Treatment Methods (Neue Untersuchungs- und Behandlungsmethoden, NUB) system. The NUB system guarantees that medical progress is put rapidly into clinical practice and prevents financial issues from becoming a stumbling block for the use of innovative drugs and methods

Protected state enhanced quantum metrology with interacting two-level ensembles

Ramsey interferometry is routinely used in quantum metrology for the most sensitive measurements of optical clock frequencies. Spontaneous decay to the electromagnetic vacuum ultimately limits the interrogation time and thus sets a lower bound to the optimal frequency sensitivity. In dense ensembles of two-level systems the presence of collective effects such as superradiance and dipole-dipole interaction tends to decrease the sensitivity even further. We show that by a redesign of the Ramsey-pulse sequence to include different rotations of individual spins that effectively fold the collective state onto a state close to the center of the Bloch sphere, partial protection from collective decoherence and dephasing is possible. This allows a significant improvement in the sensitivity limit of a clock transition detection scheme over the conventional Ramsey method for interacting systems and even for non-interacting decaying atoms

Spontaneous crystallization of light and ultracold atoms

Coherent scattering of light from ultracold atoms involves an exchange of energy and momentum introducing a wealth of non-linear dynamical phenomena. As a prominent example particles can spontaneously form stationary periodic configurations which simultaneously maximize the light scattering and minimize the atomic potential energy in the emerging optical lattice. Such self-ordering effects resulting in periodic lattices via bimodal symmetry breaking have been experimentally observed with cold gases and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) inside an optical resonator. Here we study a new regime of periodic pattern formation for an atomic BEC in free space, driven by far off-resonant counterpropagating and non-interfering lasers of orthogonal polarization. In contrast to previous works, no spatial light modes are preselected by any boundary conditions and the transition from homogeneous to periodic order amounts to a crystallization of both light and ultracold atoms breaking a continuous translational symmetry. In the crystallized state the BEC acquires a phase similar to a supersolid with an emergent intrinsic length scale whereas the light-field forms an optical lattice allowing phononic excitations via collective back scattering, which are gapped due to the infinte-range interactions. The studied system constitutes a novel configuration allowing the simulation of synthetic solid state systems with ultracold atoms including long-range phonon dynamics

Subradiance in Multiply Excited States of Dipole-Coupled V-Type Atoms

We generalize the theoretical modeling of collective atomic super- and subradiance to the multilevel case including spontaneous emission from several excited states towards a common ground state. We show that in a closely packed ensemble of $N$ atoms with $N-1$ distinct excited states each, one can find a new class of non-radiating dark states,, which allows for long-term storage of $N-1$ photonic excitations. Via dipole-dipole coupling only a single atom in the ground state is sufficient in order to suppress the decay of all $N-1$ other atoms. By means of some generic geometric configurations, like a triangle of V-type atoms or a chain of atoms with a $J=0 \to J=1$ transition, we study such subradiance including dipole-dipole interactions and show that even at finite distances long lifetimes can be observed. While generally hard to prepare deterministically, we identify various possibilities for a probabilistic preparation via a phase controlled laser pump and decay.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, includes supplemen

Protected subspace Ramsey spectroscopy

We study a modified Ramsey spectroscopy technique employing slowly decaying states for quantum metrology applications using dense ensembles. While closely positioned atoms exhibit superradiant collective decay and dipole-dipole induced frequency shifts, recent results [Ostermann, Ritsch and Genes, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{111}, 123601 (2013)] suggest the possibility to suppress such detrimental effects and achieve an even better scaling of the frequency sensitivity with interrogation time than for noninteracting particles. Here we present an in-depth analysis of this 'protected subspace Ramsey technique' using improved analytical modeling and numerical simulations including larger 3D samples. Surprisingly we find that using sub-radiant states of $N$ particles to encode the atomic coherence yields a scaling of the optimal sensitivity better than $1/\sqrt{N}$. Applied to ultracold atoms in 3D optical lattices we predict a precision beyond the single atom linewidth.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

An on-line solid phase extraction procedure for the routine quantification of caspofungin by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

Background: Extensive sets of data are required to investigate the potential use of a therapeutic drug monitoring with individualization of dosage of the antimycotic compound caspofungin. The goal was to develop an improved liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for this aim. Methods: Following protein precipitation, on-line solid phase extraction was performed for sample preparation. As the internal standard compound the veterinary drug tylosin was used. A standard validation protocol was applied. Results: Good reproducibility and accuracy of the method were observed. On-line solid phase extraction resulted in a convenient work-flow and good robustness of the method. Conclusions: This improved LC-MS/MS method was found reliable and convenient. It can be suggested for further work on the clinical pharmacology of caspofungin in the setting of clinical research laboratories