Antipsychotics, also known as neuroleptics or major tranquilizers, are a class of medication primarily used to manage psychosis, principally in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Antipsychotics are usually effective in relieving symptoms of psychosis in the short term.
Endocrinology is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology.
Medical physics is, in general, the application of physics concepts, theories, and methods to medicine or healthcare. Medical physics departments may be found in hospitals or universities.
Health informatics is information engineering applied to the field of health care, essentially the management and use of patient healthcare information. It is a multidisciplinary field that uses health information technology (HIT) to improve health care via any combination of higher quality, higher efficiency, and new opportunities. The disciplines involved include information science, computer science, social science, behavioral science, management science, and others. The NLM defines health informatics as "the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management and planning". It deals with the resources, devices, and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of information in health and bio-medicine. Health informatics tools include computers, clinical guidelines, formal medical terminologies, and information and communication systems, among others. It is applied to the areas of nursing, clinical medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, biomedical research, and alternative medicine, all of which are designed to improve the overall of effectiveness of patient care delivery by ensuring that the data generated is of a high quality.
The prothrombin time (PT) – along with its derived measures of prothrombin ratio (PR) and international normalized ratio (INR) – are assays evaluating the extrinsic pathway and common pathway of coagulation. This blood test is also called protime INR and PT/INR. They are used to determine the clotting tendency of blood, in the measure of warfarin dosage, liver damage, and vitamin K status. PT measures the following coagulation factors: I (fibrinogen), II (prothrombin), V (proaccelerin), VII (proconvertin), and X.
Trastuzumab, sold under the brand name Herceptin among others, is a monoclonal antibody used to treat breast cancer. Specifically it is used for breast cancer that is HER2 receptor positive. It may be used by itself or together with other chemotherapy medication. Trastuzumab is given by slow injection into a vein and injection just under the skin.
Anti-inflammatory is the property of a substance or treatment that reduces inflammation or swelling. Anti-inflammatory drugs make up about half of analgesics, remedying pain by reducing inflammation as opposed to opioids, which affect the central nervous system to block pain signaling to the brain.
A medical guideline is a document with the aim of guiding decisions and criteria regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment in specific areas of healthcare. Such documents have been in use for thousands of years during the entire history of medicine. However, in contrast to previous approaches, which were often based on tradition or authority, modern medical guidelines are based on an examination of current evidence within the paradigm of evidence-based medicine. They usually include summarized consensus statements on best practice in healthcare. A healthcare provider is obliged to know the medical guidelines of his or her profession, and has to decide whether to follow the recommendations of a guideline for an individual treatment.
Azimilide is a class ΙΙΙ antiarrhythmic drug. The agents from this heterogeneous group have an effect on the repolarization, they prolong the duration of the action potential and the refractory period. Also they slow down the spontaneous discharge frequency of automatic pacemakers by depressing the slope of diastolic depolarization. They shift the threshold towards zero or hyperpolarize the membrane potential. Although each agent has its own properties and will have thus a different function.
Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner; either the initial training to become a physician, or additional training thereafter.
A clinical nurse specialist (CNS) is an advanced practice nurse who can provide expert advice related to specific conditions or treatment pathways. According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), an Advanced Practice Nurse is a registered nurse who has acquired the expert knowledge base, complex decision-making skills and clinical competencies for expanded practice, the characteristics of which are shaped by the context and/or country in which s/he is credentialed to practice. Clinical Nurse Specialists are registered nurses, who have graduate level nursing preparation at the master's or doctoral level as a CNS. They are clinical experts in evidence-based nursing practice within a specialty area, treating and managing the health concerns of patients and populations. The CNS specialty may be focused on individuals, populations, settings, type of care, type of problem, or diagnostic systems subspecialty. CNSs practice autonomously and integrate knowledge of disease and medical treatments into the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of patients' illnesses. These nurses design, implement, and evaluate both patient–specific and population-based programs of care. CNSs provide leadership in the advanced practice of nursing to achieve quality and cost-effective patient outcomes as well as provide leadership of multidisciplinary groups in designing and implementing innovative alternative solutions that address system problems and/or patient care issues. In many jurisdictions, CNSs, as direct care providers, perform comprehensive health assessments, develop differential diagnoses, and may have prescriptive authority. Prescriptive authority allows them to provide pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatments and order diagnostic and laboratory tests in addressing and managing specialty health problems of patients and populations. CNSs serve as patient advocates, consultants, and researchers in various settings [American Nurses Association (ANA) Scope and Standards of Practice (2004), p. 15].
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a rare neuromuscular disorder characterised by loss of lower motor neurons and progressive muscle wasting, often leading to early death.
MEDCIN, a system of standardized medical terminology, is a proprietary medical vocabulary and was developed by Medicomp Systems, Inc. MEDCIN is a point-of-care terminology, intended for use in Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, and it includes over 280,000 clinical data elements encompassing symptoms, history, physical examination, tests, diagnoses and therapy. This clinical vocabulary contains over 38 years of research and development as well as the capability to cross map to leading codification systems such as SNOMED CT, CPT, ICD-9-CM/ICD-10-CM, DSM, LOINC, CDT, CVX, and the Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System for nursing and allied health.
The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) was a care pathway in the United Kingdom covering palliative care options for patients in the final days or hours of life. It was developed to help doctors and nurses provide quality end-of-life care. Now discredited, the LCP was widely abused as a 'tick box exercise', with patients being casually assessed as terminal, heavily sedated, and denied water so the diagnosis became self-fulfilling. Hospitals were also provided cash incentives to achieve targets for the number of patients placed on the LCP.
Acronyms are very commonly used in healthcare settings. They are formed from the lead letters of words relating to medications, organisations, procedures and diagnoses. They come from both English and Latin roots. Acronyms have been described as jargon. and their use has been shown to impact the safety of patients in hospitals, owing to ambiguity and legibility.
A clinical pathway, also known as care pathway, integrated care pathway, critical pathway, or care map, is one of the main tools used to manage the quality in healthcare concerning the standardisation of care processes. It has been shown that their implementation reduces the variability in clinical practice and improves outcomes. Clinical pathways aim to promote organised and efficient patient care based on evidence-based medicine, and aim to optimise outcomes in settings such as acute care and home care. A single clinical pathway may refer to multiple clinical guidelines on several topics in a well specified context.
The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) is a collaboration between the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness at University College London (UCL). The NCCMH aims to promote the role of evidence synthesis in making informed judgments about healthcare policy. The NCCMH has a history of developing guidelines, conducting systematic reviews and developing implementation guidance for commissioners and service providers. Formed in 2001, on 1 April 2016 a new guideline development centre, the National Guideline Alliance, based at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists took over the clinical guideline programme that had been run by NCCMH.
The Clinical Care Classification (CCC) System is a standardized, coded nursing terminology that identifies the discrete elements of nursing practice. The CCC provides a unique framework and coding structure. Used for documenting the plan of care; following the nursing process in all health care settings.
The European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM)(formerly EFCC) is a federation of national member societies of clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine from geographical Europe. EFLM has its registered office in Brussels and administrative office in Milan. EFLM is the European Region member of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC)
