Improving Survival Rates in Patients Suffering Cardiac Arrest with Specialized Resuscitation Teams: An Integrative Review

Over 300,000 hospitalized patients suffer a cardiac arrest requiring a Code Blue activation each year in the United States. These patients have an extremely high mortality rate. These rates are not uniform across all hospitals and facilities that employ specialize Code Blue resuscitation teams have a higher percentage of patients that survive resuscitation events. This Integrative Review shows that these teams are essential to patient survival but are prone to barriers that must be overcome to provide effective teamwork. Quality improvement projects centered around Code Blue teams can be created at the local level and have been found to be successful even when protocol details may differ. As long as team barriers at the facility are addressed, patient survival rates after the activation of a Code Blue can be improved

Traditional transfusion practices are changing

Schochl and co-authors have described a 5-year retrospective study that outlines a novel, important and controversial transfusion concept in seriously injured trauma patients. Traditionally, clinicians have been taught to use a serial approach, resuscitating hypovolemic trauma patients with a form of crystalloid or colloid, followed by red blood cells (RBCs), then fresh frozen plasma (FFP), and lastly platelets. The data supporting this widely accepted approach are remarkably weak. Conversely, Schochl and colleagues, in an innovative, retrospective study, describe the use of fibrinogen concentrate, plasma complex concentrate, RBCs, FFP, and platelets driven by a thromboelastometry-based algorithm. Finally, it appears that transfusion therapy is becoming driven by physiology

System and method for determining triage categories

Embodiments disclosed herein provide a system, method, and computer program product for providing a triage clas- sification system. The triage classification system uses a computer model that is developed using historical patient data. The developed computer modelis applied to collected patientattributedatafromapatientinapre-hospitalsetting to generate a triage category. Based on the generated triage category, health care professionals can take desired actions, suchastransportingthepatienttoafacilitymatchingthe generated triage category.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

REVISITING ENGEL'S LAW: EXAMINING EXPENDITURE PATTERNS FOR FOOD AT HOME AND AWAY FROM HOME

Expenditure patterns were examined for food partitioned into food at home and away from home to test the veracity of Engel's law. The analysis employed several functional forms and a Heckman two-step methodology to account for censored-response bias. Engel's law was verified in every case.Consumer/Household Economics,

Moving towards a resilient supply chain

The nature of supply chain management—global in scope, the existence of interdependent activities in the various processes, the need for collaborative relationships between members, and the uncertainty that is inherent in both supply and demand - makes it vulnerable to unexpected events that have the potential to disrupt operations as planned. Disruptions to the supply chain can have a profound effect on the firm ranging from loss of revenue to increased costs when operations don’t proceed as planned. Firms realized that it was critical to their business interests to proactively manage, and even mitigate, the risks that are inherent in global supply chains

Forecasting Police Calls during Peak Times for the City of Cleveland

For a period of time, professors from the Cleveland State University worked closely with the City of Cleveland Police Department. This partnership resulted in access to police records cataloging all emergency 911 calls for the city since 1995. Here, we describe forecasting approaches that can be used by the Police Department based on hourly 911 calls in the years 2001 to 2003 throughout the city during peak call time: the third shift during summer months. This case study is appropriate for class discussions in advanced courses in statistics to explore the application of time series analysis techniques