Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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Comparative Study
More screen time, less face time - implications for EHR design.
Understanding the impact of health information technology on doctor-patient interaction is vital to designing better electronic health records (EHRs). This article quantitatively examines and compares clinically experienced physicians' interactions with patients using paper or EHRs in ambulatory primary care settings. ⋯ For this group of family medicine physicians, more time was spent looking at the EHR screen than paper records and a little less time looking at the patient. These findings may negatively affect the patient perception of the visit with the physician and have implications for the design of future EHRs.
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On 27 September 2013, the Centre for the Humanities and Health (CHH) at King's College London hosted a 1-day workshop on 'Medical knowledge, Medical Duties'. This workshop was the fifth in a series of five workshops whose aim is to provide a new model for high-quality, open interdisciplinary engagement between medical professionals and philosophers. This report identifies the key points of discussion raised throughout the day and the methodology employed.
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Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has emerged as an effective strategy to improve health care quality. The aim of this study was to systematically review and carry out an analysis on the barriers to EBM. ⋯ The result of this study shows that there are many barriers to the implementation and use of EBM. Identifying barriers is just the first step to removing barriers to the use of EBM. Extra resources will be needed if these barriers are to be tackled.
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The practicing doctor, and most obviously the primary care clinician who encounters the full complexity of patients, faces several fundamental but intrinsically related theoretical and practical challenges - strongly actualized by so-called medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and multi-morbidity. Systems medicine, which is the emerging application of systems biology to medicine and a merger of molecular biomedicine, systems theory and mathematical modelling, has recently been proposed as a primary care-centered strategy for medicine that promises to meet these challenges. Significantly, it has been proposed to do so in a way that at first glance may seem compatible with humanistic medicine. More specifically, it is promoted as an integrative, holistic, personalized and patient-centered approach. In this article, we ask whether and to what extent systems medicine can provide a comprehensive conceptual account of and approach to the patient and the root causes of health problems that can be reconciled with the concept of the patient as a person, which is an essential theoretical element in humanistic medicine. ⋯ We argue that, although systems biological concepts, notably Noble's theory of biological relativity and downward causation, are highly relevant for understanding human beings and health problems, they are nevertheless insufficient in fully bridging the gap to humanistic medicine. Systems biologists are currently unable to conceptualize living wholes, and seem unable to account for meaning, value and symbolic interaction, which are central concepts in humanistic medicine, as constraints on human health. Accordingly, systems medicine as currently envisioned cannot be said to be integrative, holistic, personalized or patient-centered in a humanistic medical sense.
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Comparative Study
PAIN OUT: an international acute pain registry supporting clinicians in decision making and in quality improvement activities.
Management of post-operative pain is unsatisfactory worldwide. An estimated 240 million patients undergo surgery each year. Forty to 60% of these patients report clinically significant pain. Discrepancy exists between availability of evidence-based medicine (EBM)-derived knowledge about management of perioperative pain and increased implementation of related practices versus lack of improvement in patient-reported outcomes (PROs). We aimed to assist health care providers to optimize perioperative pain management by developing and validating a medical registry that measures variability in care, identifies best pain management practices and assists clinicians in decision making. ⋯ PAIN OUT, a large, growing international registry, allows use of 'real-life' data related to management of perioperative pain. Ultimately, comparative analysis through audit, feedback and benchmarking will improve quality of care.