International journal of health care quality assurance
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Admission to and transfer from an intensive care unit affects not only the patient but also his or her relatives. The authors aimed to investigate relatives' perceptions of quality of care during a patient's transfer process from an intensive care unit to a general ward. ⋯ The findings have important implications for nursing and nursing management. A relative's perception of the quality of care before and after transfer from ICU may be a valuable source to evaluate the ICU transitional care.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2014
Developing a hospital quality improvement initiative in Lesotho.
Hospital-based quality improvement (QI) programs are becoming increasingly common in developing countries as a sustainable method of strengthening health systems. The aim of this paper is to present the results and lessons learned from a QI program in a large, rural, district hospital in Lesotho, Southern Africa. ⋯ The design and early implementation of QI programs should focus on easily achievable, locally-relevant improvement projects. It was found that early successes helped to fuel further QI gains and the authors believe that the work building sustainable QI skill sets within hospital staff could be useful in the future when attempting to tackle larger national-level quality of care indicators. The findings add to the existing evidence suggesting that an increased use of locally-relevant quality improvement programming could help strengthen health care systems in low resource settings.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2014
ReviewQuality of care and health professional burnout: narrative literature review.
Quality of care and health professional burnout are important issues in their own right, however, relatively few studies have examined both. The purpose of this paper is to explore quality of care and health professional burnout in hospital settings. ⋯ The narrative literature review suggests that weak retention rates, high turnover, heavy workloads, low staffing levels and/or staffing shortages conspire to create a difficult working environment for health professionals, one in which they may struggle to provide high-quality care and which may also contribute to health professional burnout. The review demonstrates that health workforce planning concerns, such as these, impact on health professional burnout and on the ability of health professionals to deliver quality care. The review also demonstrates that most of the published papers published between 2000 and 2013 addressing health professional burnout and quality of care were nursing focused.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2014
Clinical decision support system (CDSS)--effects on care quality.
Despite their efficacy, some recommended therapies are underused. The purpose of this paper is to describe clinical decision support system (CDSS) development and its impact on clinical guideline adherence. ⋯ This paper describes and evaluates an intervention that successfully increased guideline adherence, which improved healthcare quality when the intervention CICU was compared to the control group.
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Int J Health Care Qual Assur · Jan 2014
European registry for quality improvement in cataract surgery.
A project aimed at creating a multi-national database for cataract and refractive surgery was initiated in 2008. The database was intended for learning and clinical improvement, not supervision. The project was co-funded by the European Union, under the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers and the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) and supported by 11 national societies for cataract and refractive surgery. The purpose of this article is to describe the setup of the database and the ensuing achievements within cataract surgery after four years. ⋯ A European quality registry with data input from surgeons and clinics in 16 European countries has been established. Close to one million surgeries have been entered into the system during the first four years. Evidence-based guidelines have been published based on data in the registry. The system is used for benchmarking by both experienced surgeons and trainees.