Journal of general internal medicine
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Medical ethics is a critical component of the curriculum for clinical trainees. Educational initiatives should adapt content to participants' experience in order to ensure relevance and retain their interest. ⋯ An experiential case-based didactic program in medical ethics engaged adult learners and facilitated a comprehensive and clinically relevant educational initiative.
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Effective communication is an interaction between two or more people that produces a desired effect and is a key element of quality of care for patients with advanced and serious illness and their family members. Suboptimal provider-patient/family communication is common, with negative effects on patient/family-centered outcomes. ⋯ Communication in the care of patients with advanced and serious illness can be improved using quality improvement interventions, particularly for healthcare utilization as an outcome. Interventions may be more effective using a consultative approach.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Electronic health record-based patient identification and individualized mailed outreach for primary cardiovascular disease prevention: a cluster randomized trial.
Many individuals at higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) do not receive recommended treatments. Prior interventions using personalized risk information to promote prevention did not test clinic-wide effectiveness. ⋯ In this effectiveness trial, individualized mailed CVD risk messages increased the frequency of new lipid-lowering drug prescriptions, but we observed no difference in proportions lowering LDL-cholesterol after 9 months. With longer follow-up, the intervention's effect on LDL-cholesterol levels was apparent.