Articles: professional-practice.
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Multicenter Study
Preventing hospital-acquired infections: a national survey of practices reported by U.S. hospitals in 2005 and 2009.
Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is common, costly, and potentially lethal. Whether initiatives to reduce HAI--such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) no payment rule--have increased the use of preventive practices is not known. ⋯ Since 2005, use of key practices to prevent CLABSI, VAP and CAUTI has increased in non-federal and VA hospitals, suggesting that despite its perceived importance, the non-payment rule may not be the primary driver. Moreover, while 65% of non-federal hospitals reported a moderate or large increase in preventing CAUTI as a facility priority, prevention practice use remains low.
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Int. J. Clin. Pract. · Jul 2012
First interim analysis of the GIDEON (Global Investigation of therapeutic decisions in hepatocellular carcinoma and of its treatment with sorafeNib) non-interventional study.
Global Investigation of therapeutic DEcisions in hepatocellular carcinoma and Of its treatment with sorafeNib (GIDEON), a global, non-interventional, surveillance study, aims to evaluate the safety of sorafenib in all patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC) under real-life practice conditions, particularly Child-Pugh B patients, who were not well represented in clinical trials. ⋯ The GIDEON study is generating a large, robust database from a broad population of patients with uHCC. First interim analyses have shown global and regional differences in patient characteristics, disease aetiology and practice patterns. Subsequent planned analyses will allow further evaluation of early trends.
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Cochrane Db Syst Rev · Jun 2012
Review Meta AnalysisAudit and feedback: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes.
Audit and feedback is widely used as a strategy to improve professional practice either on its own or as a component of multifaceted quality improvement interventions. This is based on the belief that healthcare professionals are prompted to modify their practice when given performance feedback showing that their clinical practice is inconsistent with a desirable target. Despite its prevalence as a quality improvement strategy, there remains uncertainty regarding both the effectiveness of audit and feedback in improving healthcare practice and the characteristics of audit and feedback that lead to greater impact. ⋯ Audit and feedback generally leads to small but potentially important improvements in professional practice. The effectiveness of audit and feedback seems to depend on baseline performance and how the feedback is provided. Future studies of audit and feedback should directly compare different ways of providing feedback.