Journal of pain and symptom management
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2004
Measuring hospice care: the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization National Hospice Data Set.
Hospice has seen rapid growth in recent years, but there is a lack of consistency among hospices when it comes to compliance with standards of care. Consequently, hospices vary in performance and in services they provide. ⋯ The data collection process, which began in 1999, has evolved substantially over a 4-year period to the point that we believe the 2002 NDS represents a well-designed core that will receive only minor modifications annually. This database will be invaluable for comparative audit, clinical practice and managing services because only that which is measured can be improved.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Oct 2004
A population-based evaluation of an intervention to improve advanced stage cancer pain management.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a community-oriented intervention in one part of the Free Town of Bremen, northern Germany (population 541,000) on the prescription prevalence of World Health Organization (WHO) class III opioids for cancer patients in their final year of life. A community-oriented, multimodal intervention included information, teaching, and training modules tailored to physicians, pharmacists, nursing staff, and patients and their relatives, and the public. Prescription prevalences were calculated for the intervention region (Bremen-Nord) and a control region (Bremen-Mitte) before and after the intervention. ⋯ The proportion of prescribing physicians remained constant. These data suggest that a community-oriented intervention in one part of Bremen had a limited impact on cancer pain therapy on the population level. A measurable change of prescription practice seemed to be restricted to the minority of physicians, who had prior experience with prescribing WHO class III opioids.