International journal for quality in health care : journal of the International Society for Quality in Health Care
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Int J Qual Health Care · Jun 2016
Observational StudyA PICU patient safety checklist: rate of utilization and impact on patient care.
In healthcare, checklists help to ensure patients receive evidence-based, safe care. Since 2007, we have used a bedside checklist in our PICU to facilitate daily discussion of care-related questions at each bedside. The primary objective of this study was to assess compliance with checklist use and to assess how often individual checklist elements affected patient management. A secondary objective was to determine whether patient and unit factors (severity of illness, unit census, weekday vs. weekend, admitting diagnosis group) influenced checklist use. ⋯ Our study found high rates of compliance with an established checklist that has been in use in the PICU since 2007. Checklist use frequently resulted in a change in the patient management plan.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Jun 2016
Development and testing of the cancer multidisciplinary team meeting observational tool (MDT-MOT).
To develop a tool for independent observational assessment of cancer multidisciplinary team meetings (MDMs), and test criterion validity, inter-rater reliability/agreement and describe performance. ⋯ MDT-MOT demonstrated good criterion validity. Agreement between clinical and non-clinical observers (within one point on the scale) was high but this was inconsistent with reliability coefficients and warrants further investigation. If further validated MDT-MOT might provide a useful mechanism for the routine assessment of MDMs by the local workforce to drive improvements in MDT performance.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Jun 2016
Off-hours admission and quality of hip fracture care: a nationwide cohort study of performance measures and 30-day mortality.
Higher risks of adverse outcomes have been reported for patients admitted acutely during off-hours. However, in relation to hip fracture, the evidence is inconsistent. We examined whether time of admission influenced compliance with performance measures, surgical delay and 30-day mortality in patients with hip fracture. ⋯ Patients admitted off-hours and on-hours received similar quality of care. The risk of surgical delay and 30 days mortality was higher among patients admitted during weekends; explanations need to be clarified.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Feb 2016
An analysis of closed medical litigations against the obstetrics departments in Taiwan from 2003 to 2012†.
To examine the epidemiologic data of closed medical claims from Taiwanese civil courts against obstetric departments and identify high-risk diseases. ⋯ Almost 93% of clinicians win their cases but spend 4.5 years waiting for final adjudication. The court ruled against the clinician only if there was no appropriate response during a complication or if there was no follow-up or further testing for potential critical diseases.
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Int J Qual Health Care · Feb 2016
Associations between demographics and health-related quality of life for chronic non-malignant pain patients treated at a multidisciplinary pain centre: a cohort study.
To describe the associations between demographics and health-related quality of life for chronic non-malignant pain patients. ⋯ In order to improve treatment at a multidisciplinary pain centre, it may be of value to target treatments to different patient subgroups based on, amongst other things, age and employment status.