Optimizing Interprofessional Rounds to Reduce Extended Length of Stay in Complex Patients

Problem: Organizations have taken measures to reduce the length of stay by addressing logistical issues such as care coordination across the continuum. This becomes especially important for patients being discharged to skilled nursing facilities (SNF), where placement can be impeded due to complex care needs. In March 2021, the facility accounted for 20% of all extended length of stay (ELOS) patients across the organization. The average ELOS was 36 days, with 42% of these patients being discharged to a SNF. Context: The Extended Length of Stay (ELOS) team functions at a mesosystem level within twenty-one medical centers across Northern California. The ELOS team identifies appropriate treatment and disposition options for complex patients across the system with lengths of stays greater than 20 days. Interventions: Integrating a SNF liaison, as the subject matter expert, into at least 50% of the biweekly ELOS rounds to improve communication and care coordination for patients being discharged to a SNF. Measures: Primary outcomes include reducing ELOS patient days by 2% (36 days to 35.3 days) during a three-month intervention period from July 2021 to September 2021 and SNF liaison participation in biweekly ELOS rounds at least 50% of the time. Results: A six percent reduction in ELOS patient days was achieved, and 100% participation by the SNF liaison in attending twice-weekly ELOS rounds. Conclusions: Reducing LOS in complex patient populations, especially those discharged to a SNF, is achievable when the appropriate specialty care experts are integrated into multidisciplinary LOS rounds

I AM U-URI Unity in Difference Mission Statement 2010

This post is the I AM U-URI Unity in Difference Mission Statement from 2010. The group became a student advisory committee for the President of the University of Rhode Island on the unique aspects of the student experience, as well as collaborate with other existing groups on issues concerning diversity at the University

Student Leadership Conference Report 2010

This is the Student Leadership Conference Attendees Report from the retreat. This is the start of the I AM U-URI Unity in Difference group on campus

Spin Wave Radiation by a Topological Charge Dipole

The use of spin waves (SWs) as data carriers in spintronic and magnonic logic devices offers operation at low power consumption, free of Joule heating. Nevertheless, the controlled emission and propagation of SWs in magnetic materials remains a significant challenge. Here, we propose that skyrmion–antiskyrmion bilayers form topological charge dipoles and act as efficient sub-100 nm SW emitters when excited by in-plane ac magnetic fields. The propagating SWs have a preferred radiation direction, with clear dipole signatures in their radiation pattern, suggesting that the bilayer forms a SW antenna. Bilayers with the same topological charge radiate SWs with spiral and antispiral spatial profiles, enlarging the class of SW patterns. We demonstrate that the characteristics of the emitted SWs are linked to the topology of the source, allowing for full control of the SW features, including their amplitude, preferred direction of propagation, and wavelength

Innovation Contests: How to Design for Successful Idea Selection

Innovation contests provide several benefits, but many organizations struggle with managing emergent challenges that occur during the idea selection process. This paper builds on qualitative interviews, where practitioners shared their experiences with managing innovation contests. Across the 13 contest domains studied in 31 cases, we identified five frequently occurring contest goals: (1) promote entrepreneurship, (2) collect innovative ideas, (3) elevate awareness, (4) explore market opportunities, and (5) find talent that influence the design of the selection process. Moreover, for five common emergent challenges we identified how practitioners apply manual and IT-enabled coping strategies, which can be associated with three design elements, i.e., the (1) ideas for the innovation, the (2) raters of the ideas, and the (3) duration of the selection process. These findings are summarized in a guiding framework that helps practitioners design, navigate, and manage the complex process of idea selection

Annealing of swift heavy ion tracks in amorphous silicon dioxide

The annealing kinetics of the high energy ion damage in amorphous silicon dioxide (a-SiO2) are still not well understood, despite the material's widespread application in material science, physics, geology, and biology. This study investigates how annealing temperature, duration, and ambient environment affect the recovery of irradiation damage produced along the trajectory of swift heavy ions in a-SiO2. The track-annealing kinetics and the changing ion track morphology were investigated using synchrotron-based small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and etching methods. We found that track annealing proceeds quicker near the sample surface demonstrated by a changing track etch rate as a function of depth. Measurements of ion tracks using SAXS show only small changes in the radial density distribution profile of the ion tracks. Activation energy of the annealing process at different sample depths was determined and the effect of the capping layer during the annealing process was also studied. Combination of oxygen diffusion and stress relaxation may contribute to the observed behaviour of preferential and anisotropic healing of the ion track. The results add to the fundamental understanding of ion track damage recovery and may have direct implications for materials for radioactive waste storage and solid state nanopores