Revista panamericana de salud pública = Pan American journal of public health
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Rev. Panam. Salud Publica · Feb 2007
Reply letter utilization by secondary level specialists in a municipality in Brazil: a qualitative study.
To identify obstacles impeding the use of the reply letter by secondary level specialists in the municipality of Camaragibe, Pernambuco, Brazil, and to highlight possible solutions for improving communication at the interface between secondary level specialist care and primary care. ⋯ Despite a general understanding of its importance, specialists in Camaragibe had difficulty adopting the reply letter as a form of communication at the interface between primary and secondary care levels. The reply letter can be effective in improving communication at the interface, but the broad cultural, historical, and organizational features of secondary level specialists need to be considered in order to improve reply letter utilization.
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Rev. Panam. Salud Publica · Feb 2007
[The Vida Chile program: results and challenges with health promotion policy in Chile, 1998-2006].
The Government of Chile has placed a high priority on health promotion. This is evident in the advances made through its National Plan for Health Promotion (Plan Nacional de Promoción de la Salud) and the Vida Chile National Council for Health Promotion (Consejo Nacional para la Promoción de la Salud Vida Chile). Chaired by the minister of health, Vida Chile is made up of 28 public and private institutions from around the country. ⋯ The average per capita cost of the community health plans' activities in 2006 was US$ 6.60. The two most important factors that facilitated the operation of the local health promotion plans were participation by community and societal groups and having an adequate budget for the local activities. Hindering factors included a lack of time and/or human resources to devote to health promotion, a geographically dispersed population, and difficulty in accessing the activities.
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To analyze home care services in Cuba and determine how length of stay, per-day cost, and per-patient cost vary by diagnosis and by the area of the country in which the services are rendered. ⋯ A longer length of stay was observed in the mountainous rural area; however, this was where the lowest per-patient and per-day costs were incurred. Length of stay can be used as an indicator for measuring the quality of home care services. From a cost perspective, length of stay must be evaluated based on diagnosis and geographic area.