BACKGROUND Millions of patients receive vitamin K antagonist (VKA) therapy worldwide. Annually 0.2-1 % of all VKA users develops an intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Prothrombin complex concentrate (PCC) is administered to restore the INR ≤ 1.5 in an attempt to limit hematoma growth. In order to facilitate PCC dosing, our hospital recently changed from a variable dose based on bodyweight, baseline...

CONTEXT Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is underutilized for treatment of acute ischemic stroke. OBJECTIVE To determine whether the probability of tPA administration for patients with ischemic stroke in an integrated health care system improved from 2009 to 2013, and to identify predictors of tPA administration. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of all ischemic stroke presentations to 14 Eme...

AIM Guideline implementation programs are of paramount importance in optimizing acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) care. Assessment of performance indicators from a local STEMI network will provide knowledge of how to improve the system of care. METHODS AND RESULTS Between 2008-2011, 1505 STEMI patients were enrolled. We compared the performance indicators before (n = 869) and a...

We present an example-based approach to rendering hand-colored animations which delivers visual richness comparable to real artwork while enabling control over the amount of perceived temporal noise. This is important both for artistic purposes and viewing comfort, but is tedious or even intractable to achieve manually. We analyse typical features of real hand-colored animations and propose an ...

Editor—A more plausible interpretation of the data presented by Rouse is that his researcher did not allow the telephone to ring for sufficient time to allow a member of the practice staff to answer it. The table shows that the researcher made around 270 telephone calls to the 91 practices in the three days before Christmas. This equates to an average of one call every 4 minutes. In reality, th...

Early thrombolytic therapy after acute myocardial infarction is important in reducing mortality. To evaluate a system for reducing in-hospital delays to thrombolysis pain to needle and door to needle times to thrombolysis were audited in a major accident and emergency (A and E) department of a district general hospital and its coronary care unit (CCU), situated about 5 km away. Baseline perform...

BACKGROUND The benefit of Thrombolytic Therapy (TT) for acute myocardial infarction is time sensitive. In Northern Ireland widespread availability of mobile coronary care units facilitates delivery of TT to heart attack victims. This region-wide prospective observational study assessed the efficacy of various methods of delivery of TT. METHODS All 15 acute hospitals providing acute coronary c...