Decision makers in health care organizations struggle with how to set priorities for new technologies in medicine. Traditional approaches to priority setting for new technologies in medicine are insufficient a...
Authors: Jennifer L Gibson, Douglas K Martin and Peter A Singer
Trials of complex health interventions often pose difficult methodologic challenges. The objective of this paper is to assess the extent to which the various development steps of a cluster randomized trial to ...
There has been a relentless increase in emergency medical admissions in the UK over recent years. Many of these patients suffer with chronic conditions requiring continuing medical attention. We wished to dete...
Authors: Hugh C Rayner, R Mark Temple, Tim Marshall and Dianne Clarke
Although systematic reviews of health care interventions are an invaluable tool for health care providers and researchers, many potential authors never publish reviews. This study attempts to determine why som...
Authors: Janet H Piehl, Sally Green and Chris Silagy
A variety of approaches have been used to contain escalating hospital costs. One approach is intensifying price competition. The increase in price based competition, which changes the incentives hospitals face...
Authors: Dana B Mukamel, Jack Zwanziger and Anil Bamezai
We aim to establish the evidence base for the recognition and management of obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASI) and to compare this with current practice amongst UK obstetricians and coloproctologists.
Authors: Ruwan J Fernando, Abdul H Sultan, Simon Radley, Peter W Jones and Richard B Johanson
Checklists for peer review aim to guide referees when assessing the quality of papers, but little evidence exists on the extent to which referees agree when evaluating the same paper. The aim of this study was...
Authors: Alan A Montgomery, Anna Graham, Philip H Evans and Tom Fahey
Practice guidelines have been developed in response to the observation that variations exist in clinical medicine that are not related to variations in the clinical presentation and severity of the disease. De...
Organizational features can affect how staff view their quality of work life. Determining staff perceptions about quality of work life is an important consideration for employers interested in improving employ...
Authors: Paul Krueger, Kevin Brazil, Lynne Lohfeld, H Gayle Edward, David Lewis and Erin Tjam
Whilst there is broad agreement on what constitutes high quality health care for people with diabetes, there is little consensus on the most efficient way of delivering it. Structured recall systems can improv...
Authors: Martin Eccles, Gillian Hawthorne, Paula Whitty, Nick Steen, Alessandra Vanoli, Jeremy Grimshaw and Linda Wood
There are a variety of ways in which accuracy of clinical tests can be summarised in systematic reviews. Variation in reporting of summary measures has only been assessed in a small survey restricted to meta-a...
In 1992, Evidence-Based Medicine advocates proclaimed a "new paradigm", in which evidence from health care research is the best basis for decisions for individual patients and health systems. Hailed in New Yor...
Economic evaluations alongside clinical trials are becoming increasingly common. Cost data are often collected through the use of postal questionnaires; however, the accuracy of this method is uncertain. We co...
Authors: Andrew DM Kennedy, Anne P Leigh-Brown, David J Torgerson, James Campbell and Adrian Grant
It is not known whether there are differences in the quality and recommendations between evidence-based (EB) and consensus-based (CB) guidelines. We used breast cancer guidelines as a case study to assess for ...
Authors: Hugh Cruse, Magdalena Winiarek, Jan Marshburn, Otavio Clark and Benjamin Djulbegovic
The study is designed to assess the organisational and human resource challenges faced by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs). Its objectives are to: specify the organisational and human resources challenges faced by P...
Authors: Elizabeth V Newbronner, Mike J Pedler, J Tim Scott and Trevor A Sheldon
Our aim was to compare access to effective care among elderly Medicare patients in a Staff Model and Group Model HMO and in Fee-for-Service (FFS) care.
Authors: Mary B Barton, Debra A Dayhoff, Stephen B Soumerai, Margo L Rosenbach and Robert H Fletcher
The format or frame in which the results of randomized trials are presented has been shown to influence health professional's self-reported practice. We sought to investigate the effect of framing cardiovascul...
Authors: Tom Fahey, Alan A Montgomery and Tim J Peters
The hierarchical pyramid inside Spanish public hospitals was radically changed by the Health Reform Law promulgated in 1986. According to it, the manpower of the hospitals was divided into three divisions (Med...
Authors: Paloma Salvadores, José Schneider and Imanol Zubero
We sought to quantify the impact of patient characteristics on complications and health care costs associated with influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI) in a nonelderly population.
Authors: Debra E Irwin, Lisa B Weatherby, Wen-Yi Huang, Daniel M Rosenberg, Suzanne F Cook and Alexander M Walker
Asthma is a common yet incompletely understood health problem associated with a high morbidity burden. A wide variety of seasonally variable environmental stimuli such as viruses and air pollution are believed...
Authors: Eric J Crighton, Muhammad M Mamdani and Ross EG Upshur
To determine the care pathways and implications of offering mothers the choice of external cephalic version (ECV) at term for singleton babies who present with an uncomplicated breech pregnancy versus assisted...
Authors: Marilyn James, Kevin Hunt, Robin Burr and Richard Johanson
Albanian immigrants in Greece comprise a highly mobile population with unknown health care profile. We aimed to assess whether these immigrants were more or less likely to undergo laparotomy for suspected appe...
Authors: Athina Tatsioni, Antonia Charchanti, Evangelia Kitsiou and John PA Ioannidis
In South Africa, where health care resources are limited, it is important to ensure that drugs provision and use is rational. The Essential Drug List includes depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) and noret...
Authors: Jennifer Smit, Andrew Gray, Lynn McFadyen and Khangelani Zuma
Why waiting lists arise and how to address them remains unclear, and an improved understanding of these waiting list "dynamics" could lead to better management. The purpose of this study is to understand how t...
Authors: David P D'Souza, Douglas K Martin, Laura Purdy, Andrea Bezjak and Peter A Singer
Total US population estimates of complications of medical care have relied on extrapolations of state-specific estimates. Generalizability is suspect because findings are limited by geographical location or ti...
Stroke patients' care in hospital tends to be poorly organised, with poor communication and a lack of information being frequent sources of complaint. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a patien...
Authors: Mulunish Ayana, Pandora Pound, Fiona Lampe and Shah Ebrahim
