Articles

Use of task-shifting to rapidly scale-up HIV treatment services: experiences from Lusaka, Zambia

The World Health Organization advocates task-shifting, the process of delegating clinical care functions from more specialized to less specialized health workers, as a strategy to achieve the United Nations Mi...

Authors: Mary B Morris, Bushimbwa Tambatamba Chapula, Benjamin H Chi, Albert Mwango, Harmony F Chi, Joyce Mwanza, Handson Manda, Carolyn Bolton, Debra S Pankratz, Jeffrey SA Stringer and Stewart E Reid

What promotes sustainability in Safe Community programmes?

The theory and practice of safety promotion has traditionally focused on the safety of individuals. This study also includes systems, environments, and organizations. Safety promotion programmes are designed t...

Authors: Cecilia Nordqvist, Toomas Timpka and Kent Lindqvist

Inpatient charges among HIV/AIDS patients in Rhode Island from 2000–2004

Inpatient HIV/AIDS charges decreased from 1996–2000. This decrease was mainly attributable to treatment of HIV/AIDS patients with Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART). This study aims to evaluate the t...

Authors: Kamil E Barbour, Anthony Fabio and Deborah N Pearlman

Losing the genetic twin: donor grief after unsuccessful unrelated stem cell transplantation

Stem cell transplantations from related or unrelated donors are used to cure leukaemia and other blood diseases. When a patient dies after an unsuccessful transplantation, interested unrelated donors are infor...

Authors: Martina Wanner, Sandra Bochert, Iris M Schreyer, Gabi Rall, Claudia Rutt and Alexander H Schmidt

A model to prioritize access to elective surgery on the basis of clinical urgency and waiting time

Prioritization of waiting lists for elective surgery represents a major issue in public systems in view of the fact that patients often suffer from consequences of long waiting times. In addition, administrati...

Authors: Roberto Valente, Angela Testi, Elena Tanfani, Marco Fato, Ivan Porro, Maurizio Santo, Gregorio Santori, Giancarlo Torre and Gianluca Ansaldo

Quality of medical training and emigration of physicians from India

Physician 'brain drain' negatively impacts health care delivery. Interventions to address physician emigration have been constrained by lack of research on systematic factors that influence physician migration...

Authors: Manas Kaushik, Ananya Roy, Anand A Bang and Ajay Mahal

Interventions to prevent disability in frail community-dwelling elderly: a systematic review

There is an interest for intervention studies aiming at the prevention of disability in community-dwelling physically frail older persons, though an overview on their content, methodological quality and effect...

Authors: Ramon Daniels, Erik van Rossum, Luc de Witte, Gertrudis IJM Kempen and Wim van den Heuvel

Reliability of the interRAI suite of assessment instruments: a 12-country study of an integrated health information system

A multi-domain suite of instruments has been developed by the interRAI research collaborative to support assessment and care planning in mental health, aged care and disability services. Each assessment instru...

Authors: John P Hirdes, Gunnar Ljunggren, John N Morris, Dinnus HM Frijters, Harriet Finne Soveri, Len Gray, Magnus Björkgren and Reudi Gilgen

Primary health care delivery models in rural and remote Australia – a systematic review

One third of all Australians live outside of its major cities. Access to health services and health outcomes are generally poorer in rural and remote areas relative to metropolitan areas. In order to improve a...

Authors: John Wakerman, John S Humphreys, Robert Wells, Pim Kuipers, Philip Entwistle and Judith Jones

Standardisation of rates using logistic regression: a comparison with the direct method

Standardisation of rates in health services research is generally undertaken using the direct and indirect arithmetic methods. These methods can produce unreliable estimates when the calculations are based on ...

Authors: Andrea K Roalfe, Roger L Holder and Sue Wilson

Exposing the key functions of a complex intervention for shared care in mental health: case study of a process evaluation

Complex interventions have components which can vary in different contexts. Using the Realistic Evaluation framework, this study investigates how a complex health services intervention led to developments in s...

Authors: Richard Byng, Ian Norman, Sally Redfern and Roger Jones

Isolated specialist or system integrated physician – different views on sickness certification among orthopaedic surgeons: an interview study

Sickness certification is a frequent and sometimes problematic task for orthopaedic surgeons.

Authors: Malin Swartling and Rolf Wahlström

A test of financial incentives to improve warfarin adherence

Sub-optimal adherence to warfarin places millions of patients at risk for stroke and bleeding complications each year. Novel methods are needed to improve adherence for warfarin. We conducted two pilot studies...

Authors: Kevin G Volpp, George Loewenstein, Andrea B Troxel, Jalpa Doshi, Maureen Price, Mitchell Laskin and Stephen E Kimmel

The symptom experience of people living with HIV and AIDS in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Symptom management for persons living with HIV (PLHIV) or AIDS is an important part of care management. Limited information about symptom prevalence exists about HIV infected persons in South Africa, in partic...

Authors: Karl Peltzer and Nancy Phaswana-Mafuya

Evidence and Value: Impact on DEcisionMaking – the EVIDEM framework and potential applications

Healthcare decisionmaking is a complex process relying on disparate types of evidence and value judgments. Our objectives for this study were to develop a practical framework to facilitate decisionmaking in te...

Authors: Mireille M Goetghebeur, Monika Wagner, Hanane Khoury, Randy J Levitt, Lonny J Erickson and Donna Rindress

In-reach specialist nursing teams for residential care homes: uptake of services, impact on care provision and cost-effectiveness

A joint NHS-Local Authority initiative in England designed to provide a dedicated nursing and physiotherapy in-reach team (IRT) to four residential care homes has been evaluated. The IRT supported 131 resident...

Authors: Ala Szczepura, Sara Nelson and Deidre Wild

The primary care amplification model: taking the best of primary care forward

Primary care internationally is approaching a new paradigm. The change agenda implicit in this threatens to de-stabilise and challenge established general practice and primary care.

Authors: Claire L Jackson, Deborah A Askew, Caroline Nicholson and Peter M Brooks

Hospital use of young children in Switzerland: A nation-wide study based on a complete survey over 4 years

Young children are known to be the most frequent hospital users compared to older children and young adults. Therefore, they are an important population from economic and policy perspectives of health care del...

Authors: Franziska V Schoeni-Affolter, Marcel Widmer and André Busato

Provincial prenatal record revision: a multiple case study of evidence-based decision-making at the population-policy level

There is a significant gap in the knowledge translation literature related to how research evidence actually contributes to health care decision-making. Decisions around what care to provide at the population (ra...

Authors: Nancy Edwards, Sonia Semenic, Shahirose Premji, Phyllis Montgomery, Beverly Williams, Joanne Olson and Omaima Mansi

A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of clinical pathways on length of stay, hospital costs and patient outcomes

To perform a systematic review about the effect of using clinical pathways on length of stay (LOS), hospital costs and patient outcomes. To provide a framework for local healthcare organisations considering th...

Authors: Thomas Rotter, Joachim Kugler, Rainer Koch, Holger Gothe, Sabine Twork, Jeroen M van Oostrum and Ewout W Steyerberg

Seizure control in patients with epilepsy: the physician vs. medication factors

Little is known about the relationship between types of healthcare providers and outcomes in patients with epilepsy. This study compares the relative effects of provider type (epileptologist vs. other neurolog...

Authors: Jerzy P Szaflarski, Angela Y Rackley, Christopher J Lindsell, Magdalena Szaflarski and Stephen L Yates

Effectiveness of a grant program's efforts to promote synergy within its funded initiatives: perceptions of participants of the Southern Rural Access Program

Foundations and public agencies commonly fund focused initiatives for individual grantees. These discrete, stand-alone initiatives can risk failure by being carried out in isolation. Fostering synergy among gr...

Authors: Donald E Pathman, Emmeline Chuang and Bryan J Weiner

Shortage in general practice despite the feminisation of the medical workforce: a seeming paradox? A cohort study

Female medical students often prefer primary care specialties, while male students appear to be attracted to hospital specialties. Notwithstanding the steady feminisation of medicine, in many countries there a...

Authors: Tanja Maiorova, Fred Stevens, Jouke van der Zee, Beppie Boode and Albert Scherpbier

Willingness to pay to sustain and expand National Health Insurance services in Taiwan

The purpose of the present study was to investigate people's willingness to pay to sustain the current National Health Insurance (NHI) program in Taiwan and to extend that program to cover long-term care servi...

Authors: Hui-Chu Lang and Mei-Shu Lai

Decision making preferences in the medical encounter – a factorial survey design

Up to now it has not been systematically investigated in which kind of clinical situations a consultation style based on shared decision making (SDM) is preferred by patients and physicians. We suggest the fac...

Authors: Meike Müller-Engelmann, Tanja Krones, Heidi Keller and Norbert Donner-Banzhoff

The impact of adverse events in the intensive care unit on hospital mortality and length of stay

Adverse events (AEs) are patient injuries caused by medical care. Previous studies have reported increased mortality rates and prolonged hospital length of stay in patients having an AE. However, these studies...

Authors: Alan J Forster, Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, Jon Hooper, Kaveh G Shojania and Carl van Walraven

Cost-effectiveness of gargling for the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections

In Japan, gargling is a generally accepted way of preventing upper respiratory tract infection (URTI). The effectiveness of gargling for preventing URTI has been shown in a randomized controlled trial that com...

Authors: Michi Sakai, Takuro Shimbo, Kazumi Omata, Yoshimitsu Takahashi, Kazunari Satomura, Tetsuhisa Kitamura, Takashi Kawamura, Hisamitsu Baba, Masaharu Yoshihara and Hiroshi Itoh

Survival enhancing indications for coronary artery bypass graft surgery in California

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is performed because of anticipated survival benefit, improvement in quality of life, or both. We performed this study to explore variations in clinical indications ...

Authors: Zhongmin Li, Richard L Kravitz, James P Marcin, Patrick S Romano, David M Rocke, Timothy A Denton, Ralph G Brindis, Jian Dai and Ezra A Amsterdam

Conceptualizing handover strategies at change of shift in the emergency department: a grounded theory study

The importance and complexity of handovers is well-established. Progress for intervening in the emergency department change of shift handovers may be hampered by lack of a conceptual framework. The objectives ...

Authors: Renée H Lawrence, Anne M Tomolo, Andy P Garlisi and David C Aron

Quality and availability of consumer information on heart failure in Australia

Provision of consumer information and patient education are considered an essential part of chronic disease management programmes developed for patients with heart failure. This study aimed to review the quali...

Authors: Agnes I Vitry, Susan M Phillips and Susan J Semple

Documentation of in-hospital falls on incident reports: Qualitative investigation of an imperfect process

Incident reporting is the prevailing approach to gathering data on accidental falls in hospitals for both research and quality assurance purposes, though is of questionable quality as staff time pressures, per...

Authors: Terry P Haines, Petrea Cornwell, Jennifer Fleming, Paul Varghese and Len Gray

The accuracy of the Jamaican national physician register: a study of the status of physicians registered and their countries of training

The number of physicians per 10,000 population is a basic health indicator used to determine access to health care. Studies from the United States of America and Europe indicate that their physician registrati...

Authors: Jennifer Knight-Madden and Robert Gray

A retrospective analysis of health systems in Denmark and Kaiser Permanente

To inform Danish health care reform efforts, we compared health care system inputs and performance and assessed the usefulness of these comparisons for informing policy.

Authors: Anne Frølich, Michaela L Schiøtz, Martin Strandberg-Larsen, John Hsu, Allan Krasnik, Finn Diderichsen, Jim Bellows, Jes Søgaard and Karen White

Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario (HSFO) high blood pressure strategy's hypertension management initiative study protocol

Achieving control of hypertension prevents target organ damage at both the micro and macrovascular level and is a highly cost effective means of lowering the risk for heart attack and stroke particularly in pe...

Authors: Sheldon W Tobe, Margaret Moy Lum-Kwong, Nancy Perkins, Shirley Von Sychowski, Rolf J Sebaldt and Alex Kiss

Targeted individual exercise programmes for older medical patients are feasible, and may change hospital and patient outcomes: a service improvement project

The aim of this project was primarily to assess the feasibility of individual exercise programs for older hospitalised patients at risk of functional decline, and secondarily to evaluate impact on discharge ou...

Authors: Jo Nolan and Susie Thomas

Identification of recruitment and retention strategies for rehabilitation professionals in Ontario, Canada: results from expert panels

Demand for rehabilitation services is expected to increase due to factors such as an aging population, workforce pressures, rise in chronic and complex multi-system disorders, advances in technology, and chang...

Authors: Diem Tran, Linda McGillis Hall, Aileen Davis, Michel D Landry, Dawn Burnett, Katherine Berg and Susan Jaglal

Mind the gap between policy imperatives and service provision: a qualitative study of the process of respiratory service development in England and Wales

Healthcare systems globally are reconfiguring to address the needs of people with long-term conditions such as respiratory disease. Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) in England and Wales are charged with the t...

Authors: Sonya Hamilton, Guro Huby, Alison Tierney, Alison Powell, Tara Kielmann, Aziz Sheikh and Hilary Pinnock

Motivation and retention of health workers in developing countries: a systematic review

A key constraint to achieving the MDGs is the absence of a properly trained and motivated workforce. Loss of clinical staff from low and middle-income countries is crippling already fragile health care systems...

Authors: Mischa Willis-Shattuck, Posy Bidwell, Steve Thomas, Laura Wyness, Duane Blaauw and Prudence Ditlopo

Dissemination and implementation of suicide prevention training in one Scottish region

As part of a national co-ordinated and multifaceted response to the excess suicide rate, the Choose Life initiative, the Highland Choose Life Group launched an ambitious programme of training for National Health ...

Authors: Linda Gask, Gillian Lever-Green and Rebecca Hays

Estimated time spent on preventive services by primary care physicians

Delivery of preventive health services in primary care is lacking. One of the main barriers is lack of time. We estimated the amount of time primary care physicians spend on important preventive health services.

Authors: Kathryn I Pollak, Katrina M Krause, Kimberly SH Yarnall, Margaret Gradison, J Lloyd Michener and Truls Østbye

How patients perceive the therapeutic communications skills of their general practitioners, and how that perception affects adherence: use of the TCom-skill GP scale in a specific geographical area

To study: (1) the structure and test-retest reliability of a measure of how patients perceive the therapeutic communications skills of their general practitioners (TCom-skill GP), and (2) the associations of t...

Authors: Michèle Baumann, Cédric Baumann, Etienne Le Bihan and Nearkasen Chau

Administrative changes in DRG-based financing models in Portugal

Authors: Ana Luisa Cardoso and Fernando Miguel Pereira

Final assessment of the ambulatory transfer potential for the coronary angiography patients in a teaching hospital in Malaysia

Authors: Zafar Ahmed

Geriatric patients: AGGIR PATHOS SOCIOS, a tool to take into account the specificity of the geriatric patient in hospital financing complementary to APRDRG

Authors: Julian Perelman

A method to estimate expected day-surgery activity in hospitals of the Spanish National Health System

Authors: Maria Soler, Mercedes Saez and Mercè Casas

Using existing case-mix methodologies to fund trauma cases

Authors: Julia Monakova and Yuriy Chechulin

The application of ACG predictive models to the English population for the purposes of funding allocation

Authors: Stephen Sutch, Klaus Lemke, Jonathan Weiner and Karen Kinder

The data collection process established for the German DRG system over the last six years with focus on data quality

Authors: Mathias Rusert

Refined French DRG with four severity levels

Authors: Alain Patris, Sandra Gomez and Marion Mendelsohn

Improving case mix for description and funding in rehabilitation in France: additive model is better than tree-classification

Authors: Pierre Métral, N Ducret, A Patris and P Steunou