Venous air embolism (VAE) is a potential complication of surgical procedures as well as central venous access. There are several reports in the literature of VAE during the in-hospital use and placement of central venous access. However, we are unaware of previous cases of VAE in children who received home infusion therapy via central venous access. We report the occurrence of a VAE in a 2-year...

Near-normal glucoregulation was maintained in five patients with juvenile-onset diabetes mellitus for 4--5 wk with a preprogrammed, continuous, subcutaneous insulin infusion using a portable battery-powered infusion pump. This form of therapy significantly lowered immunoreactive glucagon (IRG) levels below those observed while on conventional insulin treatment at several times during the 24-h p...

A patient suffering from severe symptomatic primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) underwent long-term intravenous prostacyclin therapy; the first time for such treatment in Japan. A 26-year-old male had experienced gradually progressive dyspnea for about one year. Despite conventional therapy he suffered repeated syncopal attacks. However, after receiving a permanent central venous access device...

UNLABELLED To assess continuous subcutaneous hydrocortisone infusion (CSHI) in patients with adrenocortical insufficiency (AI) and difficulties with oral replacement. Three patients with AI and frequent hospital admissions attributed to adrenal crises were treated with CSHI, which was delivered via a continuous subcutaneous infusion. All three patients preferred CSHI and remained on it long ter...

We report on a case study investigating current practice in the use of a programmable infusion pump. We start by formalising an existing description of the procedure followed by nurses for setting up a commercial infusion pump obtained via observation and interview. We then compare and contrast this procedure with a formal description of the sequence of actions reported in the pump’s user manua...

Great River Medical Center (GRMC) is a 378-bed regional facility offering acute and intermediate care to residents of southeast Iowa, west-central Illinois, and northeast Missouri. The hospital, which admits more than 6,500 patients and logs more than 190,000 outpatient visits annually, offers comprehensive medical and extensive surgical services. In 2013, GRMC began a patient safety initiative...

AIM To compare transesophageal echo-Doppler with thermodilution method for measuring cardiac output during dobutamine infusion after off-pump coronary artery bypass. METHOD Using transesophageal echo-Doppler and thermodilution methods, we measured cardiac output in 30 patients after off-pump coronary artery bypass, immediately before and 5, 15, and 30 min after the introduction of continuous ...

Background. The ability of safety technologies to decrease errors, harm, and risk to patients has yet to be demonstrated consistently. Objective. To compare discrepancies between medication and intravenous fluid (IVF) orders and bedside infusion pump settings within a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) before and after implementation of an interface between computerized physician order entry ...

Over the past three decades, telemetric pumps have been used for the infusion of intrathecal baclofen in patients with severe spasticity, but the correlation between pump implantation and quality of life (QoL) has rarely been studied. The aim of this study was therefore to quantify QoL in these patients. We assessed 15 candidates for intrathecal baclofen infusion pump implantation using three s...

Neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM) is a rare disease requiring insulin treatment. Its treatment is primarily focused on maintaining adequate glycemic control and avoiding hypoglycemia. Although insulin pump therapy is frequently administered to adults and children, there is no consensus on the use of insulin pumps in NDM. A 10 day-old female infant was referred to us with intrauterine growth reta...