Application of the Delphi Method to Identify Risks in an Acute Healthcare Setting

In efforts to mitigate risks and reduce incidences and medical legal claims, risk management programs in acute healthcare settings analyze historical data to determine root causes, improve care delivery processes and ultimately mitigate further harm. In order to maintain highly coordinated, strategic and systemic frameworks required to identify risks, risk management teams must fundamentally expand beyond grounded, compartmentalized and decentralized issues management. As a strategy to identify an applicable solution, this Major Research Project (MRP) trials foresight methods to identify risks in acute care settings. Using a foresight technique called horizon scanning, seventeen risks were identified to form a draft futures risk registry. A delphi study was conducted whereby the identified risks were rated upon by a panel of healthcare experts. Consensus was reached on eleven risks over two rounds of polling, which formed the 2025 futures risk registry; a registry that can be applicable to any comparable acute care hospital. The study concludes with three operational strategies to imbed the trailed foresight methods into routine hospital risk identification processes

Molecules in bipolar proto-planetary nebulae

Two bipolar proto-planetary nebulae, IRAS16594-4656 and IRAS17150-3224, have been detected in various molecular lines, namely CO, ^{13}CO, HCN and CN, and remain undetected in several other species. CO(J=2-1) and CO(J=3-2) line profiles are compared to new spectra of similar PPN candidates, previously undetected in CO(J=2-1): CPD-53^{o}5736, IRAS17106-3046, IRAS17245-3951 and IRAS17441-2411. CO(J=2-1) maps of IRAS16594-4656 and IRAS17150-3224 show that both PPNe have little separation between blue, centre and red-shifted emission, and also that the CO(J=2-1) emission is of a similar size to the telescope beam. Fractional abundances of all detected molecules (except CO) are calculated using the results of CO line modelling and a simple photodissociation model. For those species not detected, upper limits are derived. Comparisons between these fractional abundances and those of other PPNe show that IRAS16594-4656 and IRAS17150-3224 are quite under-abundant when compared to molecule-rich sources like CRL618, CRL2688 and OH231.8+4.2. As a reason for this deficit, the difference in circumstellar envelope/torus density between the molecule-rich sources and the molecule-poor sources is proposed, and supported by a chemical model which follows the transition of a circumstellar envelope through the AGB phase and into the PPN phase of evolution. The model includes the effects of UV radiation, cosmic rays and also X-rays. Finally, the post-AGB ages of these two objects (200-400 yr) are estimated using CN/HCN and HCN/CO ratios and both ages are found to be in agreement with previous figures cited in the literature, IRAS17150-3224 being the younger of the two PPNe.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics. 21 pages, 11 figure

Electroactive biofilms

Electroactive bacteria are microorganisms that are able to exchange electrons with a conductive solid material (particles, macroscopic conductive surfaces, electrodes). In other words, they are capable of accepting/giving electrons from/to an electrode, an insoluble substrate for the bacteria, and thus able to produce some electrical current