Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to V Holt.
This paper describes an audit of record-keeping of key information that needs to be readily available to assist in the delivery of a high standard of patient care. It resulted in the development of adhesive forms to be affixed to the front of the patient's record card. The use of these forms is described and illustrated.
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On May 7 this year, Vernon Holt's completed manuscript of his research project carried out under the MRI arrived at the BDJ's editorial office. It is not certain whether the paper will be published in the journal as, in the case of all research papers, it has to go through a rigorous refereeing process. But whatever happens, Vernon Holt has no regrets.
The Foundation for Health Care Quality (Washington) used three administrative public databases and indicators recommended by the Joint Commission and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology to build algorithms to measure quality of obstetric care in the state of Washington. Analyses demonstrated a high degree of variability across hospitals for major processes of care such as cesarean section, vaginal birth after cesarean section, and forceps deliveries. Eighty-five percent of the participating hospitals concluded that important aspects of care were being measured. Ninety-four percent found the information useful in describing their performance compared with other hospitals. Sixty-two percent believed the information was useful for initiating quality improvement projects. Of the 25 indicators tested in the project, indicators rated as most useful were the same 10 obstetric indicators chosen by the Joint Commission after alpha testing.
As a first step in developing a porcine model system to study the effect of LFA-1-specific monoclonal antibodies on allograft rejection, we have identified anti-human LFA-1 monoclonal antibodies that cross-react with porcine leukocytes and have used one of these antibodies against the LFA-1 beta-subunit to purify porcine LFA-1. Immunization of Balb/c mice with the purified antigen yielded eight monoclonal antibodies directed against the beta-subunit of porcine LFA-1. These antibodies immunoprecipitated pig proteins corresponding to the human alpha-subunits of LFA-1 (CD11a), Mac-1 (CD11b) and LeuM5 (CD11c), and their common beta-subunit (CD18). Under both reducing and non-reducing conditions, the porcine beta-subunit showed a different electrophoretic mobility from that of the human beta-subunit. In addition, results of peptide mapping studies revealed structural differences between the beta-subunits of human and porcine LFA-1. The anti-LFA-1 beta-chain antibodies were found to cross-react with antigens expressed on rat, mouse, hamster, rabbit, dog, cow and human leukocytes, indicating that the beta-subunit contains highly conserved epitopes. Competitive binding studies showed that these antibodies and three anti-human LFA-1 antibodies defined at least four distinct epitopes on the porcine beta-subunit, three of which were also found on human beta-subunits. Whereas the cross-reactive anti-human beta-subunit antibody H52 profoundly inhibited mitogenic and allogenic stimulation of porcine T lymphocytes as well as cytotoxic T cell and natural killer (NK) cell function, the anti-porcine LFA-1 monoclonal antibodies had very limited effect on porcine lymphocyte function. Our results demonstrate that porcine leukocytes express the LFA-1 molecule and that this antigen is involved in T cell and NK cell functions, as has previously been shown in human and murine systems. We conclude that the pig may serve as a useful model in which to test the effect of anti-LFA-1 antibodies on allograft rejection.