Lack of transparency and reliance on statistics alone make doctors vulnerable.

Interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has long been identified as a way of providing optimal mental health services (MHS). It is important, therefore, to identify and facilitate factors driving IPC. This paper presents health professionals' experiences and perceptions regarding the clients' role as a driving factor for IPC in MHS in an ...

OBJECTIVE: There is growing demand for safe and effective procedural sedation in pediatric facilities nationally. Currently, these needs are being met by a variety of providers and sedation techniques, including anesthesiologists, pediatric intensivists, emergency medicine physicians, and pediatric hospitalists. There is currently no consensus regarding the training required by non-anesthesiologists ...

Very little research exists examining the interactions between community-based aging service providers and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults. It is unclear whether mainstream aging services acknowledge the needs of this community. We asked direct care providers and administrators in the Michigan aging services network to describe their ...

Purpose of the Study: This study examines the characteristics of the "Village" model, an innovative consumer-driven approach that aims to promote aging in place through a combination of member supports, service referrals, and consumer engagement.  DESIGN AND METHODS:  Thirty of 42 fully operational Villages completed 2 surveys. One survey examined Villages' ...

Aims:  This paper aims to describe the development of psychiatry of old age in Victoria, Australia, from the 1950s to the present. Social and political aspects which contributed to service development are discussed. Methods:  A qualitative, narrative literature review was undertaken. Conclusions:  Today there is a comprehensive statewide aged persons ...

It is essential for professionals from different organizations to collaborate when handling matters concerning children, adolescents, and their families in order to enable society to provide health care and social services from a comprehensive approach. This paper reports perceptions of obstacles to collaboration among professionals in health care (county council), ...

Objectives: To provide pharmacy managers and consultant pharmacists with a step-by-step approach for analyzing of the costs of delivering medication therapy management (MTM) services and to describe use of a free online software application for determining costs of delivering MTM.Practice description: The process described is applicable to community pharmacies and ...

Monitoring consists of repetitive data collection to determine trends in parameters monitored. Unfortunately, too often monitoring consists of "fishing expeditions" where data collection is justified after the fact rather than being based on a priori technically defensible and testable hypotheses. Monitoring conducted following legal (e.g., regulatory) stipulations is not always ...

INTRO: The proper use of ICT services can support seniors in living independently longer. While such services are starting to emerge, current proprietary solutions are often expensive, covering only isolated parts of seniors' needs, and lack support for sharing information between services and between users. For developers, the challenge is ...

A service is produced through the interactions of the various service participants. This study aims to identify the factors that influence the interactions of the service providers, recipients, and enablers of a community-based aged health care service, within a single service network. Interviews were conducted with the manager, three care ...

The aim of this study was to assess national and regional trends in utilization and Medicare coverage of diagnostic CT colonography (CTC). Medicare claims for diagnostic CTC were identified for the first 4 complete years for which Current Procedural Terminology ® tracking codes existed (2005-2008). The frequencies of billed and ...

Web services are a new technology that enables to integrate applications running on different platforms by using primarily XML to enable communication among different computers over the Internet. Large number of applications was designed as stand alone systems before the concept of Web services was introduced and it is a ...

Currently service user involvement in routine outcomes monitoring has been minimal, particularly in Children's services. There needs to be a more sustained effort to involve service users because of the valuable information that they could provide for service development and improvement. Focus groups were conducted with service users, including parents, ...

Purpose. This article develops a standardised method for assistive technology service (ATS) provision and a logical basis for research to improve health care quality. The method is 'interoperable' across disabilities, disciplines, assistive technology devices and ATSs. Background. Absence of a standardised and interoperable method for ATS provision results in ineffective communication between ...

While outpatient anticoagulation services (AMS) have existed extensively for a number of years, inpatient AMS have only recently begun to be implemented on a widespread basis. This is in direct response to anticoagulation regulations set forth by entities such as the Joint Commission (TJC) and the Centers for Medicare and ...

Outcomes information contributes to the provision of quality services: sharing that information requires speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to use terminology readily understood by professions ranging from health and education to social and voluntary services. The Therapy Outcome Measure (TOM) provides a way of presenting outcome data in a digestible form, comprising ...

The medical and psychosocial needs of children and adolescents differ from those of adults, and this should be reflected in the care they receive in all areas of a health service. Children and adolescents must be accommodated separately to adults to ensure that their unique needs are met and risks ...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact that role-playing two pre/post standardized patient scenarios within a tobacco cessation training program had on pharmacists' counseling skills. Second, to analyze the validity of the observation coding tool used to evaluate pharmacist's role-play performance. METHODS: Pharmacists performed two role-playing scenarios which incorporated national guidelines, the ...

Information and communication technologies progress rapidly and many novel applications have been developed in many domains of human life. In recent years, the demand for healthcare services has been growing because of the increase in the elderly population. Consequently, a number of healthcare institutions have focused on creating technologies to ...

This article reviews how the nurse leaders of a 136-bed medical/surgical service developed and implemented a methodical plan to fill RN vacancies, decrease labor costs, and improve quality. This simple, straight-forward approach was designed to rapidly fill core staff positions while minimizing the impact of the vacancies and ultimately eliminate ...

This paper reflects on particular aspects of the author's supervisory relationships. A reflective framework was used to aid the process. The issue explored the factors involved when supervising supervisees without a core mental health professional background are explored; in particular, the factors of accountability and responsibility. To aid reflection, relevant ...

Surgical faculty cannot always be present while trainees perform minor procedures. Fees are not obtained for these unsupervised services because Medicare rules do not allow residents and fellows to bill. Medicare already supplements hospitals via medical education funds and thus reimbursement for trainee services would constitute double billing. Private insurance ...

This paper reports on a state agency's training activities undertaken to totally redesign a long-term-care (LTC) delivery system as part of the national Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) initiative. Through the development of an ADRC algorithm and the implementation of a corresponding client pathway, NJ DACS, a division of ...

Professionals working in mental health often exhibit high levels of strain leading to poor psychological wellbeing, emotional exhaustion and depletion of personal resources. Even under tight global economic conditions preventing burnout should be given high priority among mental health providers. This paper looks at the wide spectrum of stressors found ...

About 3,000 new citations that are highly similar to citations in previously published manuscripts that appear each year in the biomedical literature (Medline) alone. This underscores the importance for the opportunity for editors and reviewers to have detection system to identify highly similar text in submitted manuscripts so that they ...

Background:  Previous systematic reviews have indicated limited evidence and poor quality evaluations of clinical librarian (CL) services. Rigorous evaluations should demonstrate the value of CL services, but guidance is needed before this can be achieved. Objectives:  To undertake a systematic review which examines models of CL services, quality, methods and ...

The aim of this study was to assess 15-year trends in nonprocedural clinical evaluation and management (E&M) services provided by interventional radiologists (IRs). Medicare Physician Supplier Procedure Summary data from 1993 through 2008 were analyzed for changes in fee-for-service Medicare claims for nonprocedural clinical encounters (eg, consultations, rounds) provided by ...

To assess the public's perception of pharmacists' involvement and role in cardiovascular disease prevention and management. A computer-assisted telephone interview of 505 households was conducted. The survey was administered to metropolitan, rural and remote residents over the age of 30 years. The interview had questions on the patient's general satisfaction ...

The positive predictive value (PPV) for the detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or worse of referral to colposcopy from moderate dyskaryosis or worse (equivalent to high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion or worse) is a standard performance measure in the National Health Service cervical screening programme. The current target ...

To assess the beliefs of pharmacists about the helpfulness of interventions for schizophrenia and depression. A survey instrument containing a measure of mental health literacy was mailed to a random sample of 2000 pharmacists registered with the Pharmacy Board of New South Wales in November 2009. Vignettes of a person ...

Community pharmacists have the potential to deliver alcohol screening and brief interventions (SBI) to pharmacy users. However, little is known if SBI would be utilised and views of people who might use the service. Therefore, the aim was to investigate potential barriers and enablers of pharmacy SBI. Purposive sampling was ...

Patient preferences can influence the outcomes of treatment and so understanding and organizing health-care services around these preferences is vital. To explore patient preferences for types of community pharmacy-based asthma services, to investigate the influence of "experience" in molding preferences for such services, and to identify aspects of the services ...

Since 1993 the participation of Portuguese pharmacies to the national Syringe Exchange Programme (SEP) has remained high. However, no national guidelines or standard procedures are available regarding the provision of this service. We aimed to describe practices and attitudes toward syringe dispensing and other harm reduction strategies in Portuguese pharmacies. ...

To evaluate the provision of reproductive health information and services to users of emergency contraceptives (ECs) by private pharmacists. The study involved intervention (9) and control (8) pharmacies, with baseline and endline assessments of EC provision through the use of mystery clients. Intervention pharmacies received weekly updates on EC, fliers ...

 Quality laboratory services are a requisite to guide rational case management of malaria. Using a pre-tested, standardized assessment tool, we assessed laboratory diagnostic capacity in 69 primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities as well as specialized laboratories in five administrative zones in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia, during February and March ...

In Canada, most pharmacists are not paid to provide patient-centered services. In other areas of the world these services have suffered from poor adoption by pharmacists. To determine pharmacists' preferences for providing patient-centered services. Senior pharmacy students and pharmacists in British Columbia and Alberta were recruited to complete a discrete ...

Background: Patient preferences can influence the outcomes of treatment and so understanding and organizing health-care services around these preferences is vital. Objective: To explore patient preferences for types of community pharmacy-based asthma services, to investigate the influence of "experience" in molding preferences for such services, and to identify aspects of ...

Dyslipidaemia is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease. A key issue in management is adherence to therapy. Pharmacists are ideally situated to provide a service to increase medication adherence and optimize health outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a community pharmacist-delivered adherence support service on ...

Community pharmacy is an industry undergoing a transformation, evolving from a traditional product supply orientation to a business capable of incorporating services. The theoretical framework of organizational flexibility is used to understand how pharmacies' capacity can be built to provide services and identify key areas needing improvement. To determine the ...

To assess the tobacco treatment practices of Montana pharmacists, evaluate pharmacist interest in addressing tobacco use, and identify perceived barriers to delivery of tobacco cessation services. Descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study. Montana in February 2007. 192 pharmacists attending an annual continuing professional education program. Attendees at 11 meeting sites throughout the ...

The impact of telepharmacy in a multihospital health system was evaluated. Telepharmacy services were implemented at five hospitals within a Catholic, nonprofit, integrated delivery network health system. Telepharmacy services were provided by seven pharmacists employed by the health system. Using a virtual private network or terminal server, pharmacists directly accessed ...

Considerable resources have been invested in recent years to improve laboratory systems in resource-limited settings. We reviewed published reports, interviewed major donor organizations, and conducted case studies of laboratory systems in 3 countries to assess how countries and donors have worked together to improve laboratory services. While infrastructure and the ...

Objective To explore pharmacists' opinions about the provision of weight management services in community pharmacy and their attitudes towards the establishment of an accredited training course in weight management in pharmacy. Setting Interviews were conducted with practising pharmacists on site in various community pharmacies in metropolitan Sydney, Australia. Method In-depth, ...

To study the impact and potential predictors of uptake of patient registrations and supplied medicines under the Minor Ailments Scheme (MAS) in Scotland. The MAS was introduced in 2006, intending to improve health care access by re-directing patients from primary care to community pharmacies. Numbers of dispensed MAS items and ...

OBJECTIVES: The aim was to investigate community pharmacists' views on the implementation of the electronic Minor Ailment Service (e-MAS) in Scottish community pharmacies and to quantify the barriers and facilitators to service provision. METHODS: A postal cross-sectional survey of all community pharmacies in Scotland (n = 1138) was conducted. A ...

Given a number of users each of which provides a set of services with a cost for each service and has a set of requests to be satisfied, the goal of the request-service problem is to find a feasible solution that satisfies all requests of each user with minimum cost. ...

A constant refrain of policy makers and public representatives is the necessity of improving the quality of public health services. In this paper, two inter-related policies designed to raise the quality of pharmacy services in Ireland are considered. The first was to restrict the opening of new pharmacies, the second ...

INTRODUCTION: Enhanced pharmacy services (EPS) are health related services above those normally available with the supply of medicines. Rural pharmacies could provide a diversity of EPS in response to the limited access and reduced health services available in rural areas. The objective of this study was to evaluate the provision ...

Diagnostic technologies assist clinicians and care givers in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The demands for an evidence-based approach to practice, is proving to be challenging in the field of laboratory medicine as: (i) there has been little formal requirement to demonstrate evidence of effectiveness prior to ...