Health
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Incident reporting systems have become a central mechanism of most health services patient safety strategies. In this article we compare health professionals' anonymous, free text responses in an evaluation of a newly implemented electronic incident management system. The professions' answers were compared using classic content analysis and Leximancer, a computer assisted text analysis package. ⋯ The classic analysis identified specific problems needing to be targeted in ongoing modifications of the system. The Leximancer findings, while complementing the classical analysis results, gave greater insight into professional groups' attitudes that relate to use of the system, e.g. doctors' relatively limited conceptual vocabulary regarding the system was consistent with their lower incident reporting rates. Such professional differences in reaction to healthcare innovations may constrain inter-disciplinary communication and cooperation.
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The profile of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has risen dramatically over recent years, with cancer patients representing some of the highest users of any patient group. This article reports the results from a series of in-depth interviews with oncology consultants and oncology nurses in two hospitals in Australia. Analysis identifies a range of self-reported approaches with which oncology clinicians discuss CAM, highlighting the potential implications for patient care and inter-professional dynamics. ⋯ CAM education emerged as a contentious and crucial issue for oncology clinicians. Yet, while viewed as a key barrier to clinician-patient communication about CAM, various forms of individual and organizational resistance to CAM education were evident. A number of core issues for clinical practice and broader work in the sociology of CAM are discussed in light of these findings.