Journal of general internal medicine
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Comparative Study
Use of cholesterol-lowering therapy and related beliefs among middle-aged adults after myocardial infarction.
To assess use of cholesterol-lowering therapy and related beliefs among middle-aged adults after myocardial infarction. ⋯ Although most patients recognized the importance of lowering cholesterol after myocardial infarction, several clinical and demographic subgroups were less likely to receive cholesterol-lowering therapy, and many patients were unaware of their cholesterol level. Health-care providers and managed-care plans can use these findings to promote cholesterol testing and treatment for patients with coronary heart disease who are most likely to benefit from these efforts.
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Individual physicians who are paid prospectively, as in capitated health plans, might tend to encourage patients to avoid or to join these plans according to the patient's health status. Though insurance risk selection has been well documented among organizations paid on a prospective basis, such physician-level risk selection has not been studied. ⋯ Many primary care physicians report encouraging patients to join or avoid capitated plans according to the patient's health status. Although these physicians' recommendations might be associated primarily with concerns about quality, they can have the effect of insulating certain health plans from covering sicker and more expensive patients.
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To assess whether primary care performance of low-income women's primary care delivery sites is associated with the strength of their relationships with their physicians. ⋯ Primary care delivery sites organized to be more accessible, to link patients with the same clinician for their visits, to provide for all of a woman's health care needs, and to coordinate specialty care services are associated with stronger relationships between low-income women and their physicians. Primary care systems that fail to emphasize these features of primary care may jeopardize the clinician-patient relationship and indirectly the quality of care and health outcomes.
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Multicenter Study
Cross-cultural similarities and differences in attitudes about advance care planning.
Culture may have an important impact on a patient's decision whether to perform advance care planning. But the cultural attitudes influencing such decisions are poorly defined. This hypothesis-generating study begins to characterize those attitudes in 3 American ethnic cultures. ⋯ While grounded in values that may compose part of American core culture, advance care planning may need tailoring to a patient's specific ethnic views.
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To assess the association of specialty training and experience in the care of HIV disease with HIV-specific knowledge, referral patterns, and HIV-related education activities. ⋯ In a national sample of physicians, HIV-specific knowledge was more strongly associated with HIV caseload than with specialty training. In addition, although referral practices were related to both experience and specialty, generalist experts and ID physicians reported similar behaviors. This suggests that generalist physicians, through clinical experience and self-education, can develop specialized knowledge in HIV care.