International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care
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Int J Qual Health Care · Feb 2008
Trends in socioeconomic disparities in health care quality in four countries.
To provide a targeted portrait of socioeconomic disparities in health care quality in four countries and how those disparities have changed over time. ⋯ The fact that disparities in a variety of indicators exist in four very different health systems underscores the importance of factors common to the four systems or factors outside the health system. Some successful strategies for reducing disparities could potentially be learned from the few examples of success in these countries.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Dec 2007
Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups.
Qualitative research explores complex phenomena encountered by clinicians, health care providers, policy makers and consumers. Although partial checklists are available, no consolidated reporting framework exists for any type of qualitative design. ⋯ The criteria included in COREQ, a 32-item checklist, can help researchers to report important aspects of the research team, study methods, context of the study, findings, analysis and interpretations.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Oct 2007
Pain management in a medical walk-in clinic: link between recommended processes and pain relief.
While most recommended pain management practices have been developed for hospitalised patients, little is known about their relevance for ambulatory patients presenting with acute pain. ⋯ Self-reported pain relief was associated with more frequent use of recommended pain management processes. These recommendations initially developed for hospitalized patients should also be encouraged for ambulatory care patients.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Oct 2007
Out-of-hours primary care: development of indicators for prescribing and referring.
Dutch general practitioners have reorganized their out-of-hours primary health care to general practice cooperatives. Good insight into the quality of delivered medical care is important to make the accountability of health practitioners and managers transparent to society and to identify and minimize medical errors. ⋯ This study shows the importance of subjecting indicators to an empirical test in practice. The national clinical guidelines are only partially applicable in the assessment of out-of-hours primary care. They need to be expanded with topics that are related to general practitioner care in an out-of-hours setting and acute medical problems.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Oct 2007
Impact of pharmacy validation in a computerized physician order entry context.
Computerised physician order entry offers a potential means of reducing prescribing errors, and can also increase the feasibility of pharmacy validation as a secondary filter for eliminating errors. The impacts of these two benefits have never been evaluated in combination. ⋯ Pharmacy validation produced only a moderate short-term impact on the reduction of potential prescribing errors. However, pharmacy validation may also provide ongoing benefits by identifying necessary improvements in the computerized physician order entry system. Those improvements would allow pharmacists to concentrate on the most relevant interventions.