Cost awareness of anaesthetic consumable items among the National Health Service (NHS) staff and the financial impact on the NHS

Background The financial burden of running the National Health Service (NHS) is high. Staff members should be aware of the cost of the equipment they use to enable efficient use of resources, reduce waste, and control spending. However, limited financial education at undergraduate and junior stages has contributed to relatively poor knowledge among healthcare workers at all levels. Anaesthetics is a speciality which uses a large amount of equipment; therefore, we aim to assess the cost awareness among staff for commonly used consumables. Furthermore, we aim to assess staff members' attitudes towards the financial and environmental impact of the equipment they use and whether this would change their practice. Methodology An electronic survey was sent to staff members from the anaesthetic department of the Medway NHS Foundation Trust during a one-month period. Respondents were asked to estimate the cost of 19 commonly used anaesthetic consumables, with an estimate categorised as correct if it was within 20% of the actual cost. At the end of the survey, there were five questions for respondents to answer regarding the financial and environmental impact of their current healthcare practice and possible alternatives. Results There were 69 respondents within the anaesthetic department from a variety of roles. Overall, only 9.37% of items were estimated correctly, with cheaper items commonly being overestimated and more expensive items being underestimated. Overall, 60% of respondents said the cost of an item would influence their use. The overwhelming majority claimed that the environmental impact was a concern, and most would favour recyclable/reusable alternatives. Conclusions Cost awareness among anaesthetic staff for commonly used equipment is poor. More education and training are necessary in this area as limited knowledge of service costs restricts the ability to make cost-efficient choices which are needed in the current NHS. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024, Divekar et al.

A survey of the estimated cost of surgical consumable items within trauma and orthopaedic departments

Introduction The impact of the current economic and environmental climate, both nationally and globally, is further straining the NHS. This has led to scrutiny of high-expenditure areas, including consumables. Clinician's knowledge surrounding health economics is sparse, and we conducted this survey to assess cost-awareness within the Trauma and Orthopaedic (T&O) departmental staff. Methods A questionnaire was digitally distributed to T&O staff in the East Kent Hospitals Trust. This included demographic data and to make estimations of the cost of 10 specialty-specific items. The data were analysed to determine the average, median, and interquartile range (IQR) of the estimated prices and compared to the actual costs. Results Approximately 7.1% of all item estimates were deemed 'correct'. No correlation was seen between years of staff experience and the accuracy of estimates. 'Kenalog 1 mL ampoule' (Kenalog, Bristol-Myers Squibb, NJ) had the highest accuracy of estimation across all responses (13%), whilst both 'kirschner wires' and '3.2 drill bit' had the lowest accuracy (4% each). The median estimated cost was closest to the actual cost for 'cement pack' (median estimate/actual cost = 0.9). The median estimated cost was furthest from the actual cost for 'tourniquet cuffs' (median estimate/actual cost = 0.16). 'Velcro wrist splint' was the item that was the most overestimated (median estimate/actual cost = 1.57), with only two of the 10 items being overestimated ('velcro wrist splint' and 'dynamic hip screw and plate'). The most underestimated item was 'tourniquet cuffs' (median estimate/actual cost = 0.16). Conclusions There is a paucity of knowledge surrounding the cost of specialist T&O consumables. The limitations included the sample size (98 respondents) and geographical area (East Kent Hospitals Trust). This study shows that there is a need for further research into this topic, with long-term outcomes, which may be beneficial both economically and environmentally. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024, Divekar et al.

ICU nutrition in the UK : How we do it?

Optimal nutritional support has a fundamental role in the management of critically ill patients. It has a significant impact on morbidity, mortality and patient outcomes. In the United Kingdom nutritional protocols are in alignment with the National and International guidelines for nutrition

Using Correlated Subset Structure for Compressive Sensing Recovery

Compressive sensing is a methodology for the reconstruction of sparse or compressible signals using far fewer samples than required by the Nyquist criterion. However, many of the results in compressive sensing concern random sampling matrices such as Gaussian and Bernoulli matrices. In common physically feasible signal acquisition and reconstruction scenarios such as super-resolution of images, the sensing matrix has a non-random structure with highly correlated columns. Here we present a compressive sensing recovery algorithm that exploits this correlation structure. We provide algorithmic justification as well as empirical comparisons

Pushing the Limit of Data Leakage Protection Solution

Employees are the backbone of the organization, but they’re also the biggest risk to the very data that makes the business thrive. Whether an insider is malicious in their attempt to take your confidential data for personal gain, or they just don’t know better and mishandle confidential data thereby putting it at risk, insiders significantly contribute to data loss. The sensitive data could be customer information, personal details, intellectual property and many more. "Data Loss" and "Data Leak" are often used interchangeably. To keep corporate data safe, people, processes and technology must holistically address the insider threat. Different companies offer the data loss prevention (DLP) solution to protect data at rest, in motion and in use

Bio-Cryptosystem Using Fuzzy Vault Scheme

— In recent years most challenging problem is protection of information from unauthorized users. The conventional Cryptographic systems are insufficient to provide a security. The main problem is how to protect private keys from attackers and Intruder such as in case of Internet Banking. Cryptographic systems have been widely used in many information security systems. Hence in this paper we have proposed a framework of Biometric based cryptosystems. It provide reliable way of hiding private keys by using biometric features of individuals. A fuzzy vault approach is used to protect private keys and to release them only when legitimate individual enter their biometric sample. The main advantage of this system is there is no need of storing biometric information. However, fuzzy vault systems do not store directly these templates since they are encrypted with private keys by using novel cryptography algorithm. In proposed framework we are combining iris features with the encryption algorithm that can be a new research direction. The proposed approach provides high security and also image information can be protected. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150712

Guaranteed Sparse Signal Recovery with Highly Coherent Sensing Matrices

Compressive sensing is a methodology for the reconstruction of sparse or compressible signals using far fewer samples than required by the Nyquist criterion. However, many of the results in compressive sensing concern random sampling matrices such as Gaussian and Bernoulli matrices. In common physically feasible signal acquisition and reconstruction scenarios such as super-resolution of images, the sensing matrix has a non-random structure with highly correlated columns. Here we present a compressive sensing type recovery algorithm, called Partial Inversion (PartInv), that overcomes the correlations among the columns. We provide theoretical justification as well as empirical comparisons