High Precision Measurements in Gas Chromatography. Systematic Errors on the Determination of Retention Times

A comprehensive study of the sources of systematic errors in the measurements of retention times has been made. These sources include measurement errors, which are related to the problems of time measurements and are usually small and easy to correct and instrumental errors which are more difficult to correct and eventually limit the accuracy of the measurements. The main sources of systematic, instrumental errors are the retention of the inert peak (compounds which are easy to detect are not completely inert) and the effect of carrier gas volumes outside the column. These two factors are easy to correct in principle, but the random errors made in the determination of the parameters necessary to Calculate these corrections are the main limitations to the present accuracy of retention times measurements

Organisational targets of patient safety improvement programs in primary care; an international web-based survey

Contains fulltext : 125735.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Organisational problems contribute to many errors in healthcare delivery. Our objective was to identify the most important organisational items in primary care which could be targeted by programs to improve patient safety. METHODS: A web-based survey was undertaken in an international panel of 65 experts on patient safety from 20 countries. They were asked to rate 52 patient safety items on a five-point Likert scale which regards importance of each item for use for educational interventions to improve patient safety. RESULTS: The following 7 organizational items were regarded 'extremely important' by more than 50% of the experts: the use of sterile equipment with small surgical procedures (63%), the availability of adequate emergency drugs in stock (60%), regular cleaning of facilities (59%), the use of sterile surgical gloves when recommended (57%), the availability of at least one adequately trained staff member to deal with collapse and need for resuscitation (56%), adequate information handover when a patient is discharged from the hospital (56%) and periodically training of GPs in basic life support and other medical emergencies (53%). CONCLUSION: Seven organisational items were consistently prioritized; other items may be relevant in specific countries only. The logical next step is to develop and evaluate interventions targeted at these items