Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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Internationally, clinical guidelines as checklists are increasingly used in acute ward practice to standardize the delivery and raise the quality of care on acute hospital wards. However, when guideline-checklists are implemented repeatedly, health providers' intentions to carry out this type of behaviour are not well understood. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate nurses' and health care assistants' (HCAs) intentions to implement a "care round checklist"; a guideline-intervention repeated hourly on hospital wards. Furthermore, an extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model's usefulness in explaining this type of behaviour was also evaluated. ⋯ Statistically, the extended TPB model highlighted that nurses and HCAs intentions to implement this type of guideline are predicted by different variables. This implied professional "role" as an important variable in explaining differences in intentions, which should be evaluated and integrated into the future design of this type of checklist. Further variables could be added to explain and learn more about intentional thinking for this type of behaviour and should help to develop a theoretical understanding of intentions underpinning this type of behaviour and ultimately improve patient care.
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The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and perception towards evidence-based practice (EBP) and identify the perceived barriers to practicing EBP among Yemeni pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. ⋯ These results reveal strong support for EBP among pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in Yemen but only a minority indicated that they understood the technical terms of EBP. Training and continuing education programs on EBP and guidelines for pharmacists are strongly needed. These findings may help in planning the use and the application of EBP process in pharmacy practice.
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In recent years, several expensive new health technologies have been introduced. The availability of those technologies intensifies the discussion regarding the affordability of these technologies at different decision-making levels. On the meso level, both hospitals and clinicians are facing budget constraints resulting in a tension to balance between different patients' interests. As such, it is crucial to make optimal use of the available resources. Different strategies are in place to deal with this problem, but decisions on a macro level on what to fund or not can limit the role and freedom of clinicians in their decisions on a micro level. At the same time, without central guidance regarding such decisions, micro level decisions may lead to inequities and undesirable treatment variation between clinicians and hospitals. The challenge is to find instruments that can balance both levels of decision making. ⋯ The development of clinical guidelines which combine economic and clinical evidence should be stimulated, to balance central guidance and uniformity while maintaining necessary decentralized freedom. This is an opportunity to combine the reality of budgets and opportunity costs with clinical practice. Missing this opportunity risks either variation and inequity or central and necessarily crude measures.
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The aim of the present study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of the utilization of "good practice" according to a bronchiolitis clinical practice guideline (CPG) in a population of infants hospitalized for acute bronchiolitis. ⋯ Compared with lack of "good practice," the utilization of "good practice" in the diagnosis and management of acute bronchiolitis according to a bronchiolitis CPG is a dominant strategy because it involves both fewer patients readmitted within 10 days of post discharge and lower costs.
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To provide best available care, the practitioners in primary health care (PHC) must have adequate knowledge about effective interventions. The implementation of such interventions is challenging. A structured implementation strategy developed by researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, was used for the implementation of an evidence-based assessment and treatment programme for patients with subacromial pain among physiotherapists in PHC. To further develop strategies for implementation of evidence-based practices, it was deemed important to study the implementation from the practitioners' perspective. The aim of this study was to explore the practitioners' experiences from the implementation. ⋯ The practitioners' experiences from the implementation were mainly positive. A strategy with collaboration between academy and practice, and with education and implementation teams as facilitators, resulted in changes in practice. Critical voices concerned interprofessional collaboration and that the programme was focused explicitly on the shoulder, not including other components of physical function.