Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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To utilize lean six sigma (LSS) and failure model and effect analysis (FMEA) to prevent dispensing errors in a Chinese teaching hospital. ⋯ The combination of LSS and the FMEA tool can be an efficient approach for helping reduce MEs in pharmacy dispensing.
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Evidence-based practice (EBP) can improve health care in underprivileged countries. Bolivia's EBP movement is nascent and the factors contributing to better implementation in nursing are unknown. ⋯ There is a dearth of EBP knowledge among Bolivian nurses stemming from a lack of preparation in EBP environments, including EBP training opportunities. This situation affects nurses' professional dimensions of relational work, power, and collaboration. Collaborative research among educators, professional nursing societies, and local and international organizations could provide initiatives for implementing EBP, based on local health profiles.
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Clinical reasoning in general practice is increasingly challenging because of the rise in the number of patients with multimorbidity. This creates uncertainty because of unpredictable interactions between the symptoms from multiple medical problems and the patient's personality, psychosocial context and life history. ⋯ Application of "systems thinking" tools such as causal loop diagrams allows the patient's problems to be viewed holistically and facilitates understanding of the complex interactions. We will show how complexity levels can be graded in clinical reasoning and demonstrate where and how systems thinking can have added value by means of a case history.
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Multimorbidity - the occurrence of two or more long-term conditions in an individual - is a major global concern, placing a huge burden on healthcare systems, physicians, and patients. It challenges the current biomedical paradigm, in particular conventional evidence-based medicine's dominant focus on single-conditions. Patients' heterogeneous range of clinical presentations tend to escape characterization by traditional means of classification, and optimal management cannot be deduced from clinical practice guidelines. ⋯ The underlying principles include non-linearity, tipping points, emergence, importance of initial conditions, contextual factors and co-evolution, and the presence of patterned outcomes. From a clinical perspective, complexity science has important implications at the theoretical, practice and policy levels. Three essential questions emerge: (1) What matters to patients? (2) How can we integrate, personalize and prioritize care for whole people, given the constraints of their socio-ecological circumstances? (3) What needs to change at the practice and policy levels to deliver what matters to patients? These questions have no simple answers, but complexity science principles suggest a way to integrate understanding of biological, biographical and contextual factors, to guide an integrated approach to the care of people with multimorbidity.
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Decision-making in musculoskeletal health care is complex, with discrepancy among clinical providers and variation in the per cent of referrals for specialist care. To date, there is an increased focus on specialist referrals, risking overuse of expensive testing and contributing to unnecessary treatment. ⋯ Therefore, this preliminary report offers a start towards clarifying key factors and an approach for implementing improved shoulder clinical care decision-making which could then be adapted and applied to other body sites.