Bmc Fam Pract
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A research agenda can help to stimulate and guide research. The International Primary Care Respiratory Group (IPCRG) published a Research Needs Statement (RNS) in 2010 in which 145 research questions were identified. In 2012, priorities for respiratory research were established, based on these questions. To date, there has been no statement on primary care respiratory research needs in Portugal. The aim of the study was to develop a national consensus on research priorities in respiratory diseases in primary care in Portugal and to assess the applicability of the priorities for respiratory research set by the IPCRG. ⋯ The results reflect the Portuguese reality in response the international agenda for research on respiratory diseases published by the IPCRG. They can support the development of future respiratory disease research in Portugal.
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Interprofessionalism, considered as collaboration between medical professionals, has gained prominence over recent decades and evidence for its impact has grown. The steadily increasing number of residents in nursing homes will challenge medical care and the interaction across professions, especially nurses and general practitioners (GPs). The nursing home visit, a key element of medical care, has been underrepresented in research. This study explores GP perspectives on interprofessional collaboration with a focus on their visits to nursing homes in order to understand their experiences and expectations. This research represents an aspect of the interprof study, which explores medical care needs as well as the perceived collaboration and communication by nursing home residents, their families, GPs and nurses. This paper focusses on GPs' views, investigating in particular their visits to nursing homes in order to understand their experiences. ⋯ We compiled a theory of GPs home visits in nursing homes in Germany. The findings will be useful for research, and scientific and management purposes to generate a deeper understanding of GP perspectives and thereby improve interprofessional collaboration to ensure a high quality of care.
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Community health center provider ability to identify, treat and account for the social determinants of health: a card study.
The social determinants of health (SDH) are conditions that shape the overall health of an individual on a continuous basis. As momentum for addressing social factors in primary care settings grows, provider ability to identify, treat and assess these factors remains unknown. Community health centers care for over 20-million of America's highest risk populations. This study at three centers evaluates provider ability to identify, treat and code for the SDH. ⋯ An obvious discrepancy exists between the number of identifiable social factors, provider ability to address them and documentation with billing and diagnosis codes. This disparity could be related to provider inability to code for social factors and bill for related time and services. Health care organizations should seek to implement procedures to document and monitor social factors and actions taken to address them. Results of this study suggest simple methods of identification may be sufficient. The addition of searchable codes and reimbursements may improve the way social factors are addressed for individuals and populations.
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Observational Study
Is patient satisfaction with organizational aspects of their general practitioner's practice associated with patient and doctor gender? An observational study.
No study has assessed the association between patients' and doctors' gender and patient satisfaction with organizational aspects of health care in primary care. However, just like satisfaction regarding communication styles or technical skills, satisfaction towards organization of the general practitioner (GP) practice could also depend on doctors' and/or patients' gender. Different expectations between female and male patients regarding the organization of the practice or different ways of organizing care delivery between female and male GPs could act on this satisfaction. We aimed to compare female and male patients' satisfaction towards their GP overall, and according to GPs' gender. ⋯ These findings suggest that patients are highly satisfied with the organization of their GP's practice, regardless of patients' and GPs' gender. As patients' and GPs' gender are known to influence patient satisfaction towards primary care delivery and as the current study is the first to explore this aspect in relation to organizational aspects of GP practice, further studies are needed in various primary care settings to confirm our results.
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COPD-6™ is a lung function testing device for a rapid pre-spirometry testing to screen-out at-risk individuals not having COPD and indicating those at risk. The aim of this study was to validate COPD-6™ lung function testing (index test) in general practice in discriminating patients with COPD out of the population at risk - smokers/ex-smokers with no previous diagnosis of COPD, using measurements at tertiary care as reference standard. ⋯ Our study results point out that active case finding in a population at risk for COPD should be instituted (almost 20 % of undiagnosed COPD). Based on our results lung function testing with COPD-6™ can substitute spirometry testing in cases where it is not readily available to the patient/physician taken into account that the traditional FEV1/FEV6 cutoff value of <0.7 is not the only criterion for diagnosis and/or further referral.