Bmc Health Serv Res
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialA study protocol of a randomised controlled trial incorporating a health economic analysis to investigate if additional allied health services for rehabilitation reduce length of stay without compromising patient outcomes.
Reducing patient length of stay is a high priority for health service providers. Preliminary information suggests additional Saturday rehabilitation services could reduce the time a patient stays in hospital by three days. This large trial will examine if providing additional physiotherapy and occupational therapy services on a Saturday reduces health care costs, and improves the health of hospital inpatients receiving rehabilitation compared to the usual Monday to Friday service. We will also investigate the cost effectiveness and patient outcomes of such a service. ⋯ Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000973213.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2010
Checklists in the operating room: Help or hurdle? A qualitative study on health workers' experiences.
Checklists have been used extensively as a cognitive aid in aviation; now, they are being introduced in many areas of medicine. Although few would dispute the positive effects of checklists, little is known about the process of introducing this tool into the health care environment. In 2008, a pre-induction checklist was implemented in our anaesthetic department; in this study, we explored the nurses' and physicians' acceptance and experiences with this checklist. ⋯ Our findings suggest several issues and actions that may be important to consider during checklist use and implementation.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2010
Comparative StudyPatient safety in surgical environments: cross-countries comparison of psychometric properties and results of the Norwegian version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety.
How hospital health care personnel perceive safety climate has been assessed in several countries by using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety (HSOPS). Few studies have examined safety climate factors in surgical departments per se. This study examined the psychometric properties of a Norwegian translation of the HSOPS and also compared safety climate factors from a surgical setting to hospitals in the United States, the Netherlands and Norway. ⋯ The psychometric properties of the questionnaire need further investigations to be regarded as reliable in surgical environments. The operating theatre personnel perceived their hospital's patient safety climate far more negatively than the health care personnel in hospitals in the United States and with perceptions more comparable to those of health care personnel in hospitals in the Netherlands. In fact, the surgical personnel in our hospital may perceive that patient safety climate is less focused in our hospital, at least compared with the results from hospitals in the United States.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2010
Disparities of care for African-Americans and Caucasians with community-acquired pneumonia: a retrospective cohort study.
African-Americans admitted to U.S. hospitals with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) are more likely than Caucasians to experience prolonged hospital length of stay (LOS), possibly due to either differential treatment decisions or patient characteristics. ⋯ Elderly African-American CAP patients experienced a survival advantage (i.e., lower 30-day mortality) in the ICU compared to Caucasians and shorter hospital LOS in both medical wards and ICUs, after adjusting for numerous baseline differences in patient characteristics. There were no racial differences in receipt of guideline-concordant antibiotic therapies.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialStudy protocol of effectiveness of a biopsychosocial multidisciplinary intervention in the evolution of non-specific sub-acute low back pain in the working population: cluster randomised trial.
Non-specific low back pain is a common cause for consultation with the general practitioner, generating increased health and social costs. This study will analyse the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary intervention to reduce disability, severity of pain, anxiety and depression, to improve quality of life and to reduce the incidence of chronic low back pain in the working population with non-specific low back pain, compared to usual clinical care. ⋯ We hope to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed biopsychosocial multidisciplinary intervention in avoiding the chronification of low back pain, and to reduce the duration of non-specific low back pain episodes. If the intervention is effective, it could be applied to Primary Health Care Centres.