Evaluation of the improvements on pharmacy technicians' work practices after implementation of operational procedures

Several antineoplasic drugs have been demonstrated to be carcinogenic or to have mutagenic and teratogenic effects. The greatest protection is achieved with the implementation of administrative and engineering controls and safety procedures. Objective: to evaluate the improvements on pharmacy technicians' work practices, after the implementation of operational procedures related to individual protection, biologic safety cabinet disinfection and cytotoxic drug preparation. Method: case-study in a hospital pharmacy undergoing a certification process. Six pharmacy technicians were observed during their daily activities. Characterization of the work practices was made using a checklist based on ISOPP and PIC guidelines. The variables studied concerning cleaning/disinfection procedures, personal protective equipment and procedures for preparing cytotoxic drugs. The same work practices were evaluated after four months of operational procedures implementation. Concordance between work practices and guidelines was considered to be a quality indicator (guidelines concordance practices number/total number of practices x 100). Results: improvements were observed after operational procedures implementation. An improvement of 6,25% in personal protective equipment practice was achieved by changing second pair of gloves every thirty minutes. The major progress, 10%, was obtained in disinfection procedure, where 80% of tasks are now realized according to guidelines.By now, we hot an improvement of only 1% at drug preparation procedure by placing one cytotoxic drug at a time inside the biological safety cabinet. Then, 85% of practices are according to guidelines. Conclusion: before operational procedures implementation 80,3% of practices were according to the guidelines, while now is 84,4%. This indicates that is necessary to review the procedures frequently in the benefit to reduce the risks associated with handling cytotoxic drugs and maintenance of drug specifications.

A educação de adultos: um novo desafio organizacional na escola pública

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção de grau de mestre em Ciências da Educação Especialização em Administração Escolar

A composição coreográfica na Academia de Dança Contemporânea de Setúbal dirigida ao ensino secundário

Relatório Final de Estágio apresentado à Escola Superior de Dança, com vista à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ensino de Dança.

Risk Assessment of Chronic Exposure to Magnetic Fields near Electrical Apparatus

Conferência: 9th International Symposium on Occupational Safety and Hygiene (SHO) Guimaraes, Portugal - FEB 14-15, 2013

Catalytic behavior of alkali-treated Pt/HMOR n-hexane hydroisomerization

Bifunctional Pt-HMOR catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation of various desilicated MOR obtained by alkaline treatment using NaOH concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 M. The zeolite structural changes upon modification were investigated by several techniques including powder X-ray diffraction,Al-27 and Si-29 MAS-NMR spectroscopy, N-2 adsorption, pyridine adsorption followed by infrared spectroscopy and the catalytic model reaction of m-xylene transformation. For low alkaline concentration the zeolite acidity is preserved, along with a slight increase of the volume correspondent to the larger micropores due to the removal of extra-framework debris already existent at the parent zeolite. At higher NaOH concentrations there is a significant loss of crystalinity and acidity as well as the formation of mesoporosity. The characterization of the metal function shows similar patterns for Pt-HMOR and Pt-M/0.1 samples, with Pt particles located mainly inside the inner porosity. In contrast, large Pt particles become visible at the intercrystalline mesoporosity of MOR crystals developed during the desilication treatments at severe alkaline conditions. The catalytic results obtained for n-hexane hydroisomerization showed an improved selectivity for dibranched over monobranched isomers for Pt-M/0.1 sample, likely due to the preservation of the support acidity and the slight enlargement of the micropores. This work is a new example in which the mesoporous development does not improve the catalytic efficiency of the zeolites, whereas mild alkaline desilication might be considered as an effective solution to produce customized catalysts with enhanced performance for a given application. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.