Search

This article presents the structure and function of the Health Equity Collective in developing a systemic approach to promoting health equity across the Greater Houston area. Grounded in Kania and Kramer's five phases of collective impact for coalition building, The Collective operationalizes its mission through its backbone team, steering committees, and eight workgroups; each has goals that mutually reinforce and advance its vision. To date, Phase I (generating ideas), Phase II (initiating action), and Phase III (organizing for impact) have been completed. Phases IV (implementation) and Phase V (sustainability) are currently underway.

In this review, we describe the methods and technology used to measure intracage ammonia levels; the data were derived from 38 articles published since 1970. Ammonia concentration is commonly used as a surrogate for assessing environmental quality inside rodent cages. Data generated from this group of publications have been used to support new husbandry practices, determine the effect of ammonia on health, and establish the effectiveness of caging systems. Consequently, the data generated from these studies have a direct effect on animal welfare and therefore should demonstrate a high level of reproducibility. Obtaining reproducible results requires a critical understanding of the methodology and the technology used to collect ammonia concentration data. This review highlights the need for consistent methodology for measuring ammonia that considers the technology used to capture the data as well as the environmental parameters that affect ammonia concentrations, to facilitate the design of future studies.

This article describes the process of using an interprofessional team project to address one of the most commonly occurring challenges in health care delivery—medication reconciliation. We describe the planning and execution of the process and the lessons learned from the experience. The intent of this article is to document the significance of each process and the importance of each member involved in the process, and to act as a guideline for institutions planning similar interprofessional team project experiences for students.

This paper provides insight into the use of simulation-based method to streamline the process of conducting a virtual medical peer review programme. The Rural Community and Health Institute (RCHI), a component of the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, has developed an effective virtual physician peer review programme that removes bias and promotes education. This programme targets predominantly rural areas spread over a large geographic area. While this methodology is effective in promoting the ability to conduct effective distance physician peer review, the success of the programme creates the programme management challenging issues. This paper describes how these limitations were addressed by streamlining the peer review record management process utilising a simulation based approach by identifying bottlenecks in the process, streamlining the process, eliminating redundant process steps, and enhancing some of the processes with additional automation.