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Biomedical subjects

Peter Loewen

Publications and source records attributed to Peter Loewen.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Documenting drug-related problems with personal digital assistants in a multisite health system.

PURPOSE: A scalable, multiuser, personal digital assistant (PDA)-based documentation tool for pharmacist collection of data on drug-related problems (DRPs) is described. SUMMARY: A PDA-based tool for documenting DRPs and pharmacist interventions was developed with database software. Data fields were based on the pharmaceutical care model. PDA synchronization stations were configured to transmit encrypted data from three hospital sites to a central server. Pharmacists in a multisite health care organization were trained to use the documentation tool. Data were analyzed with commercially available software. Users' opinions about the tool were solicited in a survey. Twenty-eight PDAs containing a 15-field database were issued to 39 pharmacists in 31 service areas. Data were successfully transmitted from all hospital sites over the existing corporate local area network. During a two-month period, 5084 DRPs were documented; 90% of them were resolved at the time of data entry. The most frequent types of DRPs were the need to add a drug (31%) and the ordering of an unnecessary drug (15%). Most pharmacists reported that the tool was easy to use, was well integrated with the workflow, and required less than 30 minutes per day for documenting DRPs. CONCLUSION: A PDA-based documentation tool was successfully used in a multisite health care organization to collect data on DRPs and document pharmacist interventions.

Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems↗
PubMed2003

Randomized, double-blind trial of dolasetron versus droperidol for prophylaxis of postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing TRAM flap breast reconstruction surgery.

Clinical observation indicates that patients undergoing transverse rectus abdominus musculocutaneous (TRAM) flap breast reconstruction surgery frequently experience postoperative nausea and/or vomiting (PONV). No controlled trials have evaluated the role of pharmacologic prophylaxis of PONV in this population. A prospective randomized, double-blinded, active-controlled trial comparing intraoperative intravenous droperidol 1 mg with dolasetron 50 mg was conducted. Seventy-one patients were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. The incidence of the primary end point of PONV within 24 hours after surgery was 81.8% versus 78.9% for droperidol and dolasetron, respectively (p = 0.8). No significant differences were detected in the time to onset of PONV, incidence of severe nausea or emesis, or incidence of emesis alone. Time to rescue antiemetic use was longer in the droperidol group (7.1 vs. 1.3 hours, p = 0.002). Adverse effects were similar between the two groups. No PONV-related complications occurred during the trial period. The incidence of PONV in TRAM flap breast reconstruction surgery patients remains high despite prophylactic intraoperative antiemetic administration.

Antiemetics↗