Internal medicine journal
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Implementation of standardised surveillance for Clostridium difficile infections in Australia: initial report from the Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System.
Detection of a hypervirulent strain of Clostridium difficile in Victoria led to commencement of targeted surveillance for C. difficile infection in 2010. Cases were reported through the Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System. ⋯ Data reflect successful implementation of continuous surveillance for C. difficile infection. With hypervirulent C. difficile infection now reported in other Australian states, development of a national data repository for C. difficile infection is necessary.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Risk factors for 30-day readmission in general medical patients admitted from the emergency department: a single centre study.
Overcrowding in emergency departments (ED) around the world is an increasingly serious problem with an adverse impact on both patient flow and patient outcomes. A significant contributing factor to ED overcrowding is possibly due to readmission. Risk factors for readmission in patients admitted from ED are rarely studied, particularly in Asian countries where the length of stay is reportedly longer. ⋯ Medical patients admitted from the ED of a referral centre have a 30-day readmission rate of 16.7%. Post-discharge care should focus on patients with higher Charlson score, longer hospitalisation, anaemia and underlying active malignancy, which are independent predictive factors for 30-day readmission.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Detection of patients presenting with adverse drug events in the emergency department.
Adverse drug events (ADE) have been studied widely in hospitalised and emergency department (ED) patients. Less is known about the ED visits of drug-related injury in Taiwan. This study seeks to determine the incidence, risk and patient outcomes of ADE in an ED population. ⋯ ADE-related ED visits are not uncommon in Taiwan and many cases are preventable. ED-based surveillance may provide useful information for monitoring outpatient ADE.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
Identifying patient-specific beliefs and behaviours for conversations about adherence in asthma.
Asthma guidelines advise addressing adherence at every visit, but no simple tools exist to assist clinicians in identifying key adherence-related beliefs or behaviours for individual patients. ⋯ This study identified several specific beliefs and behaviours which clinicians could use for initiating patient-centred conversations about medication adherence in asthma.
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Internal medicine journal · Jun 2012
A variant in microRNA-196a2 is not associated with susceptibility to and progression of colorectal cancer in Chinese.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs with regulatory functions as tumour suppressors and oncogenes. Although single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in miRNA regions have been reported to be rare and unlikely to be functionally important, recent evidence suggested that rs11614913 SNP in miR-196a2 was associated with the susceptibility of lung cancer, breast cancer, congenital heart disease and shortened survival time of non-small-cell lung cancer. ⋯ Our results suggest that miR-196a2 polymorphism is not associated with both an increased risk and progression of CRC in Chinese.