Errors in healthcare: A Proposed Study Investigating a Universal Methodology for Improving Patient Handoffs and Limiting Healthcare Errors

Medical errors are greatly considered to be one of the leading causes of death in the United States, with around 250,000 deaths occurring per year (Anderson & Abrahamson, 2017). Many studies have investigated the causes of these errors, and have found communication to be a major source. The present proposal is a two-study design first planned to investigate the effects of interruptions on the time taken to return to the Tower of London Task. This methodology has first been observed in Hodgetts and Jones (2006) who investigated this using undergraduate students as participants, and found a main effect of both duration and complexity of interruptions. This replication will use registered nurses to complete the London Tower Task while unexpected interruptions occur, attempting to see if these findings replicate. With those expectations, I go on to propose a follow-up study designed to test the effectiveness of an intervention to better handle such interruptions in the healthcare environment. The implementation of the I-PASS mnemonic has proven to be successful in minimizing healthcare errors by 23% in pediatric residency hospitals (Starmer et al., 2014). This proposal will not only replicate this methodology in other residency hospitals but the use of an I-PASS written template will be used to improve this methodology. The implementation of the I-PASS mnemonic and template will help to manage the intrinsic load of nurses during patient handoffs, by increasing their working memory capacity. This implementation will universalize patient handoffs within the healthcare system, and in turn, minimize the occurrence of health care errors and the death that come from it

Spin-Correlation Coefficients and Phase-Shift Analysis for p+3^3He Elastic Scattering

Angular Distributions for the target spin-dependent observables A$_{0y}$, A$_{xx}$, and A$_{yy}$ have been measured using polarized proton beams at several energies between 2 and 6 MeV and a spin-exchange optical pumping polarized $^3$He target. These measurements have been included in a global phase-shift analysis following that of George and Knutson, who reported two best-fit phase-shift solutions to the previous global p+$^3$He elastic scattering database below 12 MeV. These new measurements, along with measurements of cross-section and beam-analyzing power made over a similar energy range by Fisher \textit{et al.}, allowed a single, unique solution to be obtained. The new measurements and phase-shifts are compared with theoretical calculations using realistic nucleon-nucleon potential models.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Extracting W Boson Couplings from the e+e−e^{+}e^{-} Production of Four Leptons

We consider the processes $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow \ell^{+} \ell^{\prime -}\nu \bar{\nu}^{\prime}$, including all possible charged lepton combinations, with regard to measuring parameters characterizing the $W$ boson. We calculate at what level these processes can be used to measure anamolous triple-boson vertice coupling parameters for the cases of $e^{+}e^{-}$ colliders at 500 $GeV$ and 1 $TeV$ center of mass energies.Comment: 13 pages,OCIP/C-93-

Emerging Policy and Practice Issues (2016)

This paper, presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference (covering 2015), attempts to identify the key trends and issues in U.S. federal procurement. Consistent with prior practice, this chapter offers extensive coverage of the federal procurement, grant, and defense spending trends and attempts to predict what lies ahead, particularly with regard to legislative and executive activity. The paper discusses, in addition to the macro-level data, initiatives from OFPP and DoD, including the Better Buying Power 3.0\u27s less-than-obvious focus on innovation, the need for investment in research and development, information technology and category management, acquisition performance measurement (or metrics), and cost drivers

The Contract Management Body of Knowledge: Understanding an Essential Tool for the Acquisition Profession

The collective knowledge of any profession is commonly referred to as its body of knowledge. In the acquisition, procurement, or government contracting profession, the collective wisdom of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) organizes, and periodically updates, a broadly accepted conceptual inventory of the profession’s acquired knowledge. This article describes the NCMA Guide to the Body of Knowledge, how it was developed and is maintained, and its importance and relevance to people concerned with the contract management profession

The Contract Management Body of Knowledge: Understanding an Essential Tool for the Acquisition Profession

The collective knowledge of any profession is commonly referred to as its body of knowledge. In the acquisition, procurement, or government contracting profession, the collective wisdom of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) organizes, and periodically updates, a broadly accepted conceptual inventory of the profession’s acquired knowledge. This article describes the NCMA Guide to the Body of Knowledge, how it was developed and is maintained, and its importance and relevance to people concerned with the contract management profession