INFORMATION:
Read more about the improvements in the quality of voluntary medical male circumcision and the methods used on the PLOS ONE website.
Improvement in the quality of VMMC made possible through the continuous quality improvement approach
The continuous quality improvement approach was introduced on a pilot basis to 30 sites across Uganda
2015-07-28
(Press-News.org) The continuous quality improvement (CQI) approach was introduced on a pilot basis to 30 sites across Uganda. This approach identified barriers in achieving national standards for voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), identified possible solutions to overcome these barriers, and carried out improvement plans to test these changes while collecting performance data to objectively measure whether they had bridged gaps.
Teams used a 53-indicator quality assessment tool adapted by the Ministry of Health and based on the WHO VMMC Quality Toolkit as a management tool to measure progress across seven standards areas. Teams also measured client-level indicators through self-assessment of client records. Within one year of the start of the improvement efforts, the 30 sites achieved large improvements in compliance with the VMMC standards.
PEPFAR and USAID supported the work through the Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems Project and ten different implementing partners across Uganda.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
World's first bilateral hand transplant on child at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
2015-07-28
Surgeons at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) joined with colleagues from Penn Medicine recently to complete the world's first bilateral hand transplant on a child. Earlier this month, the surgical team successfully transplanted donor hands and forearms onto eight-year-old Zion Harvey who, several years earlier, had undergone amputation of his hands and feet and a kidney transplant following a serious infection.
Led by L. Scott Levin, M.D., FACS*, Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Penn Medicine, Director of the Hand Transplantation Program ...
How to digitally stoke that old-time auction fever
2015-07-28
Whether online auctions are selling rare Pokemon cards or fine art, the science behind inciting the highest bids gets a boost from a paper to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Retailing. Researchers from Germany and Australia teamed up to explore how bidders' emotions are affected by different types of auctions and how those emotions affect their bidding.
In "Auction Fever! How Time Pressure and Social Competition Affect Bidders' Arousal and Bids in Retail Auctions," the three authors - Marc T.P. Adam of the University of Newcastle, Professor ...
Sleepy fruitflies get mellow
2015-07-28
PHILADELPHIA - Whether you're a human, a mouse, or even a fruitfly, losing sleep is a bad thing, leading to physiological effects and behavioral changes. One example that has been studied for many years is a link between sleep loss and aggression. But it can be difficult to distinguish sleep loss effects from stress responses, especially in rodent or human models.
A team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania used fruitflies to probe deeper into the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern aggression and sleep. They ...
Firms 'underinvest' in long-term cancer research
2015-07-28
Pharmaceutical firms "underinvest" in long-term research to develop new cancer-fighting drugs due to the greater time and cost required to conduct such research, according to a newly published study co-authored by MIT economists.
Specifically, drugs to treat late-stage cancers are less costly to develop than drugs for earlier-stage cancers, partly because the late-stage drugs extend people's lives for shorter durations of time. This means that the clinical trials for such drugs get wrapped up more quickly, too -- and provide drug manufacturers more time to control patented ...
Penn Vet study shows immune cells in the skin remember and defend against parasites
2015-07-28
Just as the brain forms memories of familiar faces, the immune system remembers pathogens it has encountered in the past. T cells with these memories circulate in the blood stream looking for sites of new infection.
Recently, however, researchers have shown that memory T cells specific to viral infections can also set up residence in particular tissues. There, they stand guard, ready to respond quickly to the first sign of reinfection.
Now, research led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine shows that these resident memory T cells ...
New eye-tracker method shows 'preferred retinal location' in both eyes
2015-07-28
July 28, 2015 - Eyes with central vision loss adapt by developing a new fixation point in a different part of the retina, called the preferred retinal location (PRL). Now for the first time, a new method makes it possible to identify PRLs in both eyes simultaneously, reports a study in the August issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
The new eye-tracker technique may help in developing visual rehabilitation approaches to improve binocular vision for the many older adults ...
Cellphones can steal data from 'air-gapped computers' according to Ben Gurion University researchers
2015-07-28
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...July 28, 2015 - Researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) Cyber Security Research Center have discovered that virtually any cellphone infected with a malicious code can use GSM phone frequencies to steal critical information from infected "air-gapped" computers.
Air-gapped computers are isolated -- separated both logically and physically from public networks -- ostensibly so that they cannot be hacked over the Internet or within company networks.
Led by BGU Ph.D. student Mordechai Guri, the research team discovered how to turn ...
Doctor Google: How age and other factors influence online health information searches
2015-07-28
Consumers have access to multiple Web sites to search for online health information and can be far more involved in managing their own medical issues than ever before. However, this wealth of resources can make finding accurate information difficult, especially because it is often spread across multiple sites. A new study published in the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making aims to evaluate the types of search strategies that Internet users adopt when trying to solve a complicated health problem.
Joseph Sharit, a professor in the Department of Industrial ...
Endangered icebreakers: The future of Arctic research, exploration and rescue at risk
2015-07-28
Alexandria, VA - The United States' Icebreaker Fleet - operated by the U.S. Coast Guard - consists of just two ships that are used for everything from search and rescue to national security operations to scientific research. In our August cover story, EARTH Magazine examines the various roles icebreakers play, especially in Arctic research, and how insufficient funding is affecting the icebreakers' roles.
Icebreakers are becoming more important every year, as more commerce is conducted in Arctic regions as seasonal ice cover decreases. Yet over recent fiscal cycles, Congress ...
Neurology researchers evaluate evidence base for tests for clinical cognitive assessment
2015-07-28
West Orange, NJ. July 28, 2015 Recommendations for improving clinical cognitive testing were reported by the American Academy of Neurology's (AAN) Behavioral Neurology Section (BNS) Group, led by Kirk R. Daffner, MD, of Boston, Mass. The Group focused on the Neurobehavioral Status Exam (NBSE), conducting evidence-based reviews of testing used for five domains - attention, language, memory, spatial cognition, and executive function). "Improving clinical cognitive testing" (doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000001763) was published online ahead of print on July 10, 2015, in Neurology, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
CHANGE-seq-BE finds off-target changes in the genome from base editors
The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: January 2, 2026
Delayed or absent first dose of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination
Trends in US preterm birth rates by household income and race and ethnicity
Study identifies potential biomarker linked to progression and brain inflammation in multiple sclerosis
Many mothers in Norway do not show up for postnatal check-ups
Researchers want to find out why quick clay is so unstable
Superradiant spins show teamwork at the quantum scale
Cleveland Clinic Research links tumor bacteria to immunotherapy resistance in head and neck cancer
First Editorial of 2026: Resisting AI slop
Joint ground- and space-based observations reveal Saturn-mass rogue planet
Inheritable genetic variant offers protection against blood cancer risk and progression
Pigs settled Pacific islands alongside early human voyagers
A Coral reef’s daily pulse reshapes microbes in surrounding waters
EAST Tokamak experiments exceed plasma density limit, offering new approach to fusion ignition
Groundbreaking discovery reveals Africa’s oldest cremation pyre and complex ritual practices
First breathing ‘lung-on-chip’ developed using genetically identical cells
How people moved pigs across the Pacific
Interaction of climate change and human activity and its impact on plant diversity in Qinghai-Tibet plateau
From addressing uncertainty to national strategy: an interpretation of Professor Lim Siong Guan’s views
Clinical trials on AI language model use in digestive healthcare
Scientists improve robotic visual–inertial trajectory localization accuracy using cross-modal interaction and selection techniques
Correlation between cancer cachexia and immune-related adverse events in HCC
Human adipose tissue: a new source for functional organoids
Metro lines double as freight highways during off-peak hours, Beijing study shows
Biomedical functions and applications of nanomaterials in tumor diagnosis and treatment: perspectives from ophthalmic oncology
3D imaging unveils how passivation improves perovskite solar cell performance
Enriching framework Al sites in 8-membered rings of Cu-SSZ-39 zeolite to enhance low-temperature ammonia selective catalytic reduction performance
AI-powered RNA drug development: a new frontier in therapeutics
Decoupling the HOR enhancement on PtRu: Dynamically matching interfacial water to reaction coordinates
[Press-News.org] Improvement in the quality of VMMC made possible through the continuous quality improvement approachThe continuous quality improvement approach was introduced on a pilot basis to 30 sites across Uganda