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This paper reports on a study undertaken to determine what progress has been made in the uptake and impact of the CompHP Core Competencies on Health Promotion practice, education and training in Europe since their publication in 2011. The study used a purposive sample comprising health promoters who had contributed to the development of the CompHP Competencies was augmented by snowball sampling across European Health Promotion practitioners. An online survey tool was employed to elicit information on respondents' attitudes to the Competencies, levels of current and intended use, and opinions on their impact. A total of 81 responses were received from 25 European countries. Findings on factors considered likely to influence the use of the Competencies were generally positive, as were respondents' attitudes to them. However, only 53% of respondents reported that the CompHP Competencies were used in their country and 54% that they used them in their practice. The Competencies were most frequently used in Health Promotion education, where their impact was also most apparent. A lack of support and recognition of the Competencies by key organizations and stakeholders at country level emerges as a potentially critical factor influencing their uptake and use. The survey findings provide an insight into the uptake and impact of the CompHP Core Competencies to date and begin to address the gap in empirical evidence on the use and impact of Health Promotion competencies. However, further research is required to explore the factors influencing implementation of the CompHP Core Competencies at a country level.

Objectives This study aimed to explore the use of standard concentration infusions for intravenous infusions (SCI) in paediatric and neonatal units in the United Kingdom (UK). This included how many units use SCI, variation and overlap in concentrations, devices in use for administration and how the infusions were provided. Methods Paediatric and neonatal units in the UK were surveyed using a self-administered web-based survey tool. Respondents were accessed through professional networks over a one-month period in summer 2016. Key findings Thirty-one units (40%) used SCI. Twenty-one units provided information on presentation and administration of SCI. Forty-six medicines were used as SCI with 143 different concentrations. ‘Smart’ pump technology was most commonly used in the administration of SCI, and SCI were predominantly prepared by nurses in the near-patient setting. Conclusions The majority of paediatric and neonatal units in the UK used traditional weight-based methods for IV infusions and only 40% of responding units had established SCI. This local implementation of SCI resulted in a wide variation of presentations and concentrations and thus there is no true ‘standardisation’. Further research should be conducted on harmonising these SCI across neonatal and paediatric care to facilitate adoption across all units.

Introduction Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep-related breathing disorder with an estimation of one billion people. Full-night polysomnography is considered the gold standard for OSA diagnosis. However, it is time-consuming, expensive and is not readily available in many parts of the world. Many screening questionnaires and scores have been proposed for OSA prediction with high sensitivity and low specificity. The present study is intended to develop models with various machine learning techniques to predict the severity of OSA by incorporating features from multiple questionnaires. Methods Subjects who underwent full-night polysomnography in Torr sleep center, Texas and completed 5 OSA screening questionnaires/scores were included. OSA was diagnosed by using Apnea-Hypopnea Index ≥ 5. We trained five different machine learning models including Deep Neural Networks with the scaled principal component analysis (DNN-PCA), Random Forest (RF), Adaptive Boosting classifier (ABC), and K-Nearest Neighbors classifier (KNC) and Support Vector Machine Classifier (SVMC). Training:Testing subject ratio of 65:35 was used. All features including demographic data, body measurement, snoring and sleepiness history were obtained from 5 OSA screening questionnaires/scores (STOP-BANG questionnaires, Berlin questionnaires, NoSAS score, NAMES score and No-Apnea score). Performance parametrics were used to compare between machine learning models. Results Of 180 subjects, 51.5 % of subjects were male with mean (SD) age of 53.6 (15.1). One hundred and nineteen subjects were diagnosed with OSA. Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUROC) of DNN-PCA, RF, ABC, KNC, SVMC, STOP-BANG questionnaire, Berlin questionnaire, NoSAS score, NAMES score, and No-Apnea score were 0.85, 0.68, 0.52, 0.74, 0.75, 0.61, 0.63, 0,61, 0.58 and 0,58 respectively. DNN-PCA showed the highest AUROC with sensitivity of 0.79, specificity of 0.67, positive-predictivity of 0.93, F1 score of 0.86, and accuracy of 0.77. Conclusion Our result showed that DNN-PCA outperforms OSA screening questionnaires, scores and other machine learning models. Support (if any)

The 2015 feedlot consulting nutritionist survey is a collaborative project between New Mexico State University and Texas Tech University that focuses on summarizing the professional practices of consulting feedlot nutritionists and updates a 2007 survey. Forty-nine consulting feedlot nutritionists were asked to participate, of which 24 completed the survey. The nutritionists surveyed service over 14,000,000 cattle annually and were representatives from individual consulting practices (54.2%), corporate cattle feeding companies (20.8%), corporate feed manufacturing companies (20.8%), or a combination of consulting practices (4.2%). The survey was completed using a web-based survey tool and contained 101 questions that were divided into sections regarding general information about the consulting practice; general cattle management; receiving cattle management, diet adaption; mixers, feed mills, and feeding management; grains and grain processing; grain by-product use; roughage use; information about supplements and microingredients; liquid feed use; nutrient formulation; feed additive use; and information used as a basis for nutritional recommendations. In most cases, the results of the current survey were similar to those reported for the 2007 survey, with a few notable exceptions such as shifts in cattle numbers and preferences for specific feedstuffs. The present study introduced a number of new questions not included in the 2007 survey that focused on management strategies used in the receiving period. Data from this survey provide insight into current nutritional and management practices of consulting nutritionists and, as in past surveys, should be useful for informing national committees that make nutritional recommendations for cattle, as well as nutrition and management strategies employed within university research settings.

Purpose The degree of compliance with antibiogram guidance among University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) hospitals was analyzed. Methods The UHC Pharmacy Council Pharmacy Practice Advancement Committee conducted a survey to evaluate hospital policies regarding the generation, reporting, and utilization of antibiograms among UHC hospitals. The survey was distributed via a UHC online survey tool to pharmacy directors at 237 UHC hospitals. Responses were collected from April 13 to May 14, 2010. Results Of the 237 hospitals to which surveys were sent, 49 hospitals (21%) from 28 states submitted survey responses. Forty-eight hospitals reported that they routinely generated antibiograms, and 36 reported that they adopted all or most of the standards recommended by the 2009 guidelines on antibiograms published by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). The compliance rates to the four key CLSI recommendations were as follows: 98% reported data at least annually, 89% eliminated duplicate isolates, 83% did not include surveillance isolates, and 64% required at least 30 isolates for each reported species. Thirty-eight hospitals had an antimicrobial stewardship program; 35 of them formally reviewed antibiograms and 19 implemented new programs based on the antibiogram data. In 16 hospitals, formulary changes were made as a consequence of antibiogram results. In 30 hospitals, pharmacists had significant involvement in compiling, reviewing, and reporting antibiograms. Conclusion Among respondents from 47 UHC hospitals, the compliance rates to four key CLSI recommendations for antibiograms ranged from 64% to 98%. Respondents from 30 hospitals reported significant involvement of pharmacists in compiling, reviewing, and reporting antibiograms.

Objectives To determine nurses' perceptions and expectations of clinical pharmacists prior to, and 9 months after, clinical pharmacy services were introduced on two general and gastrointestinal surgery hospital wards in Canada. Methods A survey tool was developed based on previous research, validated to ensure reliability and accuracy, and administered to approximately 70 nurses on the surgery wards. Key findings Response rates for the pre and post surveys were 75% and 67% respectively. Nurses indicated that the quality of pharmacy service improved significantly from pre to post survey (85% versus 95%; P < 0.0001). There was a statistically significant increase in positive responses to seven out of eight statements such as accessibility of pharmacists, timely responses to drug-related questions, and timely delivery of unit doses and intravenous admixtures. Almost all statements about nursing staff expectations showed increases in agreement. At least 85% of nurses indicated their expectations had been met or exceeded for all but one clinical pharmacy service. A higher proportion of nurses in the post survey felt that clinical pharmacists positively impact on their roles and responsibilities as a nurse. Comments from nurses indicated enthusiastic support for clinical pharmacy services. Conclusions A survey tool to assess the quality of pharmacy services in the hospital setting has been developed, validated, and distributed. A high level of nurses' satisfaction with the provision of new clinical pharmacy services on general surgery/gastrointestinal surgery wards was demonstrated. Nursing staff were more aware of the responsibilities of clinical pharmacists and how the clinical pharmacist role could assist them in their own nursing practice. The survey may be useful for other wards and other institutions to measure satisfaction with pharmacy services.

Health care workers' perceptions of patient suffering have not been well studied. Patients and health care workers were invited to answer a single, open-ended question. To develop a survey tool that could be validated and used for future research, what health care workers thought causes or caused the most suffering for patients was compared with what patients actually identified as the cause of their worst suffering. Health care workers underestimated loss and significantly underestimated physical nonpainful symptoms as causes of maximal suffering. Communication, emotional, and systems issues were often overestimated by health care workers. Health care workers may not accurately perceive what causes the worst suffering for patients. More studies are needed.

It is often difficult if not impossible to include a pediatric patient in the planning of burn reconstruction. To give the patient greater input into his or her reconstructive plan, we developed a survey tool to evaluate the different reconstructive goals of the patient, the parent, and the physician. Each patient, parent, and physician were requested to complete a separate goal form. Each form consisted of a simple line drawing of a child that shows both anterior and posterior views. The patient, the parent, and the physician were each asked to circle the desired reconstruction site or sites. The responses were collated and compared by sex, age, size of burn, and evaluator (patient, parent, or physician). Patients indicated fewer and different desired reconstruction sites than the physicians or the parents. Before reconstruction is planned, the patient should be consulted. The desires of the parents and the physician may differ significantly from those of the patient.

After the laboratory synthesis of gyplure (Jacobson 1960, Jacobson and Jones 1962), a sex attraclant for the male gypsy moth, Porthetria dispar (L.), and its establishment as a valuable survey tool for delineating areas of infestation of this destructive insect (Jacobson 1962a, 1962b), the possibility of using gyplure to control the gypsy moth was investigated. In 1961, high concentrations of both liquid and granular formulations of commercially piepared gyplure were applied by aircraft over an infested 400-acre island in Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire, in an effort to prevent male moths from locating and successfully mating with females (Burgess 1964). Field observations revealed that this particular lot of gyplure had no effect on male mating behavior. Subsequent investigations showed that its ineffectiveness was due to a masking effect of the inactive trans form of gyplure, and possibly related byproducts, on the activity of the cis form (Jacobson 1963). Accordingly, we developed chromatographic methods (Jones and Jacobson 1964) for determining the content of cis -gyplure in samples of gyplure prepared in the laboratory and the pilot plant, as well as for separating the cis isomer from its contaminants on a small scale.