Arch Intern Med
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
The impact of dedicated medication nurses on the medication administration error rate: a randomized controlled trial.
Concerns about hospital medication safety mount as the pace of new drug releases accelerates. ⋯ This trial suggests that use of dedicated medication nurses does not reduce medication error rates. However, subgroup analysis indicates that medication nurses might be useful in some settings. The differences in findings at the 2 hospitals and their differences in medication-use processes reinforce the concept that medication errors are usually related to systems design issues.
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Multicenter Study
Communitywide trends in the use and outcomes associated with beta-blockers in patients with acute myocardial infarction: the Worcester Heart Attack Study.
Despite the benefits associated with beta-blocker therapy in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), limited recent data are available describing the extent of use of this therapy and the associated hospital and long-term outcomes, particularly from the perspective of a population-based study. Data are also limited about the characteristics of patients with AMI who do not receive beta-blockers. This study examines more than 2 decades of trends in the use of beta-blockers in hospitalized patients with AMI. ⋯ The results of this observational study demonstrate encouraging trends in the use of beta-blockers in hospitalized patients with AMI and document the benefits to be gained from this treatment.