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Introduction: Ineffective communication between health care professionals is one of the leading causes of medical errors and can result in adverse events and patient harm. Improving the effectiveness of communication in health care is a worldwide necessity. Objective: The aim of this project was to promote evidence-based practices regarding general communication principles among the nursing staff in one unit of a children's hospital in the southern United States. Methods: The project used JBI's Evidence Implementation Framework, together with two JBI audit tools (Practical Application of Clinical Evidence System and Getting Research into Practice). A baseline audit was conducted, followed by the implementation of targeted strategies. The project was completed with a follow-up audit to determine changes in practice. Results: Baseline data revealed 61% adherence with four audit criteria for effective communication in health care. Barriers included a lack of education of nursing staff regarding communication skills and less than optimal use of a structured communication tool. Targeted strategies to address the barriers included providing an educational module on communication to nursing staff and moving the structured communication tool to a more convenient location to increase its use. The post-implementation data revealed 81% adherence with the four audit criteria, a 20% increase from baseline results. Conclusions: Optimizing communication and monitoring the use of a structured communication tool has the potential to decrease the risk of medical errors among health care providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced oxidation process in general and hydrodynamic cavitation, in particular, has emerged as a promising technology for the treatment of wastewater in the last few years as the process is energy-efficient and cost-effective. In this process, cavities are generated due to local pressure drops caused by constrictions. This work aimed to investigate the potential of hydrodynamic cavitation as a tertiary treatment to treat the secondary sedimentation tank effluent of a sewage treatment plant, with two laboratory-scale experimental setups having an orifice plate of a 1 mm diameter hole. The process dependency was estimated by optimizing inlet pressure (0.8 bar for setup I and 5 bar for setup II). Moreover, effective orifice jet length was varied to investigate the impact of fluid buoyancy force on expansion and collapse of a cavity on the chemical oxygen demand removal and disinfection potential. At L2 length (two-thirds of the original length), both setups can degrade the organic and inorganic pollutants to the maximum extent. With the optimum condition in setup II, maximum COD, TSS, and fecal coliform degradation were 80.47%, 62.83%, and 52.27%, respectively, compared to setup I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ar:CO2 gas mixtures have recently received research interest due to the possibly beneficial effects of Ar addition to CO2 for CO2 conversion using electrical discharges. For any gas discharge, knowledge of fundamental parameters, such as the effective ionization coefficient, is necessary to optimize the efficiency of the discharge for a particular application. The reduced apparent effective ionization coefficient αea/N is a measure of total ionization. αea/N is influenced by electron impact ionization, electron attachment and also by charge transfer reaction, Penning ionization, and photoionization. This study determined the αea/N of Ar:CO2 gas mixtures in the pressure range of 10–800 Torr and reduced electric field strength E/N range of 40–1200 Td utilizing a steady-state non-self-sustaining Townsend discharge. Experimental results were compared with calculations of Boltzmann equation solver BOLSIG+. Differences between measurements and calculations increased with decreasing CO2 content in the mixture down to 20%, and the differences were highest at low E/N values (below 150 Td). As the simple modification of the model, contribution of ionization of CO2 by Penning transfer from Ar* 3p53d excited states (13.86 eV) was added to the BOLSIG+ calculations, which resulted in good fit of the experimental measurements. Comparison of CO2 addition to Ar with the addition of O2 or N2 revealed that ionization of CO2 or O2 from Ar* 3p53d excited states influences ionization in Ar:CO2 and Ar:O2 mixtures but not in Ar:N2 mixtures, due to the different ionization energies of CO2, O2, and N2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]