PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

N Gunter

Publications and source records attributed to N Gunter.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Prophylactic antibiotic project.

This project evaluated the use of prophylactic antibiotics within two hours prior to selected surgical procedures. Even with knee arthroplasty, for which there is essentially universal agreement on the need for prophylactic antibiotics, there is room for improvement in antibiotic delivery. This is true both in the percent of patients receiving antibiotics and the timeliness of administration. Although there is some difference of opinion about the advisability of prophylactic antibiotics for certain procedures, the preponderance of recent literature advocates its use and this is a quality indicator evaluated by JCAHO.

Antibiotic Prophylaxis↗
PubMed1997

Cooperative Cardiovascular Project.

This national project evaluated elements of care for patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction. Opportunities for improving processes of care, especially in the use and timing of aspirin and thrombolytics, were identified. Additional data regarding other quality indicators is available. It is hoped that this data can be used to help create or incorporate changes in existing AMI protocols, ultimately improving care and outcomes for these patients.

Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal↗
PubMed1997

Pneumonia I and Pneumonia II Projects.

The need for timely and efficient treatment is assuming even greater significance, with pneumonia discharges increasing from 5,862 in 1992 to 7,870 in 1994. These two projects, involving a total of 13 hospitals, evaluated the timeliness of antibiotic administration for pneumonia patients. Baseline data revealed opportunities for improving process of care at all hospitals. After implementation of improvement plans, the majority of hospitals increased the percentage of patients receiving antibiotics within four hours of admission. This evaluation of the antibiotic delivery system can also be adapted to other diagnoses and medications.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗
PubMed1988

Diarrheal deaths in American children. Are they preventable?

We reviewed national mortality data for 1973 through 1983 to assess the importance of diarrheal diseases as a cause of preventable childhood death in the United States. An average of 500 children aged 1 month to 4 years died each year with diarrhea reported as the cause of death. These diarrheal deaths were most common among children who were younger than 1 year of age, black, and living in the South, and were most common during the winter. In Mississippi, review of fatal cases of diarrhea identified maternal factors--black race, young age, unmarried status, low level of education, and little prenatal care--to be most associated with diarrheal death in the child. Fifty percent of these deaths occurred after a child had reached a medical facility. Our findings suggest that diarrheal deaths may be preventable and that targeted interventions could contribute to improved child survival in the United States.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Experiences with linked birth and infant death certificates from the NIMS project.

The National Infant Mortality Surveillance (NIMS) project aggregated data provided by 53 vital statistics reporting areas--50 States, New York City, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico (subsequently called States)--from their files of linked birth and death certificates and compared individual States' total infant mortality experiences for the 1980 birth cohort by age at death, race, birth weight, and plurality. Therefore, it was essential to achieve maximum uniformity among the separate data sets and to specify when this uniformity could not be obtained. In working with these multiple sources, we identified five key issues that relate to data from linked birth and death certificates: Variations in definitions of variables are often embedded in data that have been gathered from several independent sources. (For NIMS, the sources were 53 reporting areas and the National Center for Health Statistics.) Variations in States' linking procedures--these are based on an individual State's primary purpose for linking the data--affect the completeness and comparability of the 1980 resident birth cohorts used for NIMS. Variations in the recording of some pregnancy outcomes as fetal deaths or live births are known to be a problem in vital statistics data that particularly affects data for events among infants weighing less than 500 g at birth. Ambiguities occur frequently in unknowns or zero values. For NIMS this effect was most pronounced for the pregnancy history variables. Examination of the values reported for unknown or zero categories helps in uncovering problems with and improving quality of data. (e) Analysis from a new perspective may reveal unexpected data problems. These problems tend to surface only during a reexamination of underlying data that is prompted by unusual findings.Continued alertness to these issues may improve further the quality of data in files of linked birth and death certificates and assure the integrity of analysis based on these data.

Birth Certificates↗