Annals of family medicine
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Annals of family medicine · Apr 2022
Establishing patient-partner priorities within the primary and integrated health care innovations network in Canada.
Background: Many experienced primary care researchers have seen the benefits of meaningful engagement with patients and community members in their research, elevating them to a research partner status. The research questions and agendas, however, are often initiated and determined by the researchers. Increasingly, research teams, organizations and networks actively engage with patient-partners to better understand what their research priorities would look like, bringing patient-partners into the research process much earlier. ⋯ The initial priorities eventually evolved into a set of principles, strategic operating goals, and finalized research priorities. Conclusion: Through an iterative process, the Council was able to lead, initiate and differentiate strategic operating goals from the research priorities. This process and results can provide insight for developing critical input from patient-partners for primary health care research.
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Annals of family medicine · Apr 2022
PPE portraits: patient and clinician experiences at a COVID-19 testing site.
Context: The COVID-19 pandemic mandated personal protective equipment (PPE) in healthcare settings, obscuring clinician faces and expressions, and depersonalizing patient care experiences. PPE Portraits (affixing a clinician's photo to the front of PPE) was first introduced in 2015 during the West Africa Ebola epidemic, and has been shown to help maintain patient-provider connection at times when patients may be fearful, isolated, and unable to identify clinicians caring for them. Objective: To evaluate patient and clinician experiences with PPE Portraits. ⋯ Conclusion: PPE Portraits humanized the COVID-19 testing experiences for patients and clinicians during a time of fear. Clinicians recommended PPE Portraits for other healthcare settings that require PPE. Future research could assess how PPE Portraits promote patient-provider connection and trust.
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Annals of family medicine · Apr 2022
COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy among southern rural veterans with cancer in the arkansas-louisiana-texas (ArkLATX) region.
Context: The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a major socioeconomic disruptor in the U. S. and around the globe. The only intervention that has a far-reaching impact is the adoption of an efficient large-scale vaccination campaign with the highly effective COVID-19 vaccines. ⋯ Conclusions: This survey indicates that the majority of ArkLATX veterans with cancer are willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The major reasons behind vaccine hesitancy seem to be information problems consisting of questions about safety, inadequate information, and seeing no reason for the vaccine. Such barriers can be potentially circumvented by providing the appropriate information and counseling.
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Annals of family medicine · Apr 2022
Patient survey superior to EMR extraction for eliciting positive symptoms at COVID-19 illness onset.
Context: COVID-19 has ravaged nations around the world, with New York City (NYC) and the NYC suburbs being particular epicenters of COVID-19 infection. Suffolk County, NY, has reported over 200,000 cases and 3,000 deaths to date. Most initial COVID-19 research concerned hospitalized patients. ⋯ Setting or Dataset: 107 patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases at the 3 primary care practices of Stony Brook University Hospital between March and December, 2020. Population Studied: adult, English speaking primary care patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 Intervention/Instrument: patient self report telephone survey, EMR data extraction survey Outcome Measures: symptom duration, symptom severity, persistence of symptoms at 3 month time point Significant Results: Patient self-report survey elicited nearly twice as many symptoms described at illness onset vs. those recorded in the EMR. Conclusions: Early in the setting of newly emerging infectious diseases, particularly those such as COVID-19 which involve multiple organ systems, patient self report of symptoms of illness rather than EMR extraction alone may be crucial both for identifying cases and in order to characterize pathophysiology of disease in real time.
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Annals of family medicine · Apr 2022
General practitioner perspectives and experiences when screening for primary aldosteronism in hypertensive patients.
Context: Primary aldosteronism (PA) is a common form of hypertension caused by excess production of the adrenal hormone aldosterone. Screening hypertensive patients with a simple blood test enables early detection and targeted treatment of PA, leading to fewer cardiovascular complications. Australian family physicians (FPs) rarely screen for PA, and screening rates are equally low among North American FPs. ⋯ Knowledge and convenience of the screening process, the conceptualization of risk, and the perceived impacts of detecting PA were influencing factors that modified the FP screening experience. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that additional factors, other than limited awareness, influence a FP's decision to screen for PA. Our findings have the potential to inform future policy, practice, and training interventions to improve the detection of PA in family practice.