Healthcare quarterly (Toronto, Ont.)
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Seniors account for a high number of emergency department (ED) visits, yet little is known about how they decide to visit the ED. This paper reports on the results of surveys completed by 264 seniors who visited the ED and their caregivers and interviews with a subset (N = 51) of survey respondents, aimed at understanding how they decide to visit the ED. Although older adults rely on others to help them decide whether to visit the ED, only a small proportion consult healthcare providers in doing so. Opportunities exist for enhancing seniors' decision-making process regarding ED visits and access to community-based healthcare to avoid ED visits.
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Alberta is undertaking a bold and somewhat risky step overhauling its health system governance to build higher performance in quality, safety and improved health outcomes for Albertans. On the heels of having re-established a single province-wide health authority (Alberta Health Services [AHS]), provincial health system decision makers have moved to establish province-wide Strategic Clinical Networks™ (SCNs). ⋯ SCNs were developed in part as a strategy for strengthening clinical engagement to achieve a broad range of healthcare delivery benefits including improvement of clinical care processes and reduced variations in practice, better access to care and improved patient outcomes across the province. Here, we examine the rationale and potential of this governance intervention, while also considering some of the fundamental questions around their potential impact and the ultimate need for multidimensional assessment.
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Resident and family councils aim to improve resident and family satisfaction, but guidelines for councils are scarce. This project developed a toolkit and tested its ability, along with networking meetings, to promote successful councils. ⋯ Participants found that the toolkit helped improve council function and, with the networking meetings, increased participation. All sites found the toolkit and networking meetings to be valuable resources and had a strong desire to have them available in the future.
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Although geared towards a common goal - improved patient-centred care - quality improvement strategies and patient engagement-focused approaches are often developed and conducted in silos. The lack of integration may lead, on the one hand, to the uptake of patient suggestions that do not always take into consideration implications for the delivery of quality care and, on the other hand, to inadequate understanding of patient views required to create optimal services. ⋯ Preliminary assessments of this project revealed that the integration of these two approaches is feasible and that it was well received by both staff and families. There is important synergy to be found between patient engagement and quality improvement that needs to be leveraged by organizational structures and processes to fulfill the commitments inherent in both fields.
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Cancer patients experience a high symptom burden throughout their illness. Quality cancer symptom management has been shown to improve patient quality of life and prevent emergency department use. ⋯ However, patient symptom information is not always sufficiently addressed. To address these gaps, patient and family advisors collaborated with clinicians, administrators and health system leaders from across the Province in a Symptom Management Summit to share perspectives and co-design context-specific solutions to improve care in their region.