Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Implementing The Patient-Centered Care Paradigm In An Academic Research Environment, Fernando Orgas

Theses & Dissertations

Research Focus. The healthcare landscape is transitioning from a provider-centered care model toward greater emphasis on patient-centered care (PCC). The shift to PCC reflects efforts to increase the quality of healthcare and the care experience. The current state of research within healthcare remains focused on how to provide high-quality and sound research that will bring new equipment, procedures, and verify strategies that may benefit healthcare globally. However, changes in the healthcare atmosphere bring a new perspective to research. How is the paradigm shift to patient-centered care implemented in an academic research environment? Does this holistic mindset fully cross into …

Affordable Care Act And Preventive Care Usage: A Mixed Method Analysis Of Cardiovascular Care, Brit Peek

Theses & Dissertations

It is a commonly held belief that access to health insurance affects the level of utilization of preventive care services, and thus plays a crucial role in the effective management of avoidable chronic illnesses, decreasing levels of premature mortality, and enabling individuals to live wholesome long lives. Based on this belief, among other goals, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to increase access to health insurance and related medical services for the population of the United States. This dissertation attempts to identify whether this belief is valid or not by testing whether the usage of preventive care changed between …

Preventive Healthcare Usage In The United States: Does Health Insurance Matter, Diane Rodriguez

Theses & Dissertations

The Centers for Disease Control in the United States has maintained that adults who avoid preventive care services are more likely to suffer from long term chronic diseases because they are not addressed or treated in a timely manner. Examining the effects of providing access to healthcare to uninsured adults and increasing preventive services can help in reducing chronic diseases and enable adults to live longer, healthier lives. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between the utilization of preventive health services and socioeconomic factors such as insurance status, race/ethnicity, household income, marital status, education, gender, age, …

Ozone Induced Effects On The Mammalian Visual System, Jordan Wetz

Theses & Dissertations

Research Focus. Millions of people who suffer from retinal disease live in air-polluted environments. The impact of the gaseous air pollutant ozone (O₃), a strong oxidant, on the retina is unknown. The aim of the present study is to compare the electroretinographic responses between control (no O₃ exposure) and O₃ -exposed rats and to better understand the effects of O₃ on retinal function.

Materials and Methods. Age-matched adult female rats were separated into two groups (N = 6), 3 control and 3 experimental. The experimental group was exposed to 0.4 ppm O₃ for …

Screening Of Crude Microalgal Extracts For Antimicrobial Activity, Patrick Matulich

Theses & Dissertations

Microbial biofilm associated infections are a significant threat to patients with medical devices and are partially responsible for the increased resistance seen in nosocomial infections. The biofilm chemical and physical properties restrict access of chemotherapeutic agents. Therefore, there is a need to enhance the antimicrobial effects of current chemotherapeutic agents. Microalgae live in competitive environments that include film-forming, opportunistic pathogens S. maltophilia and C. albicans. Extracts from 5 diverse species of microalgae were screened for antimicrobial enhancing effects against established biofilms with two different extraction solvents, 3:1 hexanes and isopropyl (HIPA) and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran (2-MTHF).

Three species, B. braunii, …

Nursing Leaders’ Ethical Decision-Making About Professional Boundaries And Nurse-Patient Relationships: A Mixed Methods Explanatory Sequential Design, Pamela Scott

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods explanatory sequential design study was to ascertain nursing leaders’ knowledge and skill in ethical decision-making when evaluating and managing professional nurse-patient relationship boundaries. It was also the purpose of this study to better understand nursing leaders’ perception of moral, cognitive, and organizational factors influencing their ethical decision-making in evaluating and managing professional nurse-patient relationships, with the intent of generating a theory grounded in the views of the participants as a final outcome of the study. The two theories, virtue ethics and self-efficacy comprise the ethicality construct of the conceptual framework explaining the nurse leaders’ …