199 resultados para Marketing of Health Services.
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Background There is wide, largely unexplained, variation in occupational health (OH) provision between UK employers.
Aim To explain the variation in OH provision across the UK university sector.
Methods Analyses of data from a survey of university OH services and from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. The outcome variable was clinical (doctor + nurse) staffing of the university's OH service. The explanatory variables examined were university size, income, research activity score and presence or absence of academic disciplines categorized by an expert panel as requiring a high level of OH provision.
Results All 117 UK universities were included and 93 (79%) responded; with exclusions and incomplete data, between 80 and 89 were included in analyses. There was wide variation in clinical OH staffing (range 0–8.4 full-time equivalents). Number of university staff explained 34% of the variation in OH staffing. After adjusting for other factors, neither the research activity nor the presence of high-needs disciplines appeared to be factors currently used by employers to determine their investment in OH.
Conclusions Government or other guidelines for university employers should take organizational size into account. Employers may need guidance on how to provide OH services proportionate to specific occupational hazards or other OH needs.
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Specialist psychological assessment plays a potentially important role in multidisciplinary community mental health settings. This portfolio describes and evaluates this psychological assessment and provides four case studies.
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Background
Reducing patient length of stay is a high priority for health service providers. Preliminary information suggests additional Saturday rehabilitation services could reduce the time a patient stays in hospital by three days. This large trial will examine if providing additional physiotherapy and occupational therapy services on a Saturday reduces health care costs, and improves the health of hospital inpatients receiving rehabilitation compared to the usual Monday to Friday service. We will also investigate the cost effectiveness and patient outcomes of such a service.
Methods/Design A randomised controlled trial will evaluate the effect of providing additional physiotherapy and occupational therapy for rehabilitation. Seven hundred and twelve patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation at two metropolitan sites will be randomly allocated to the intervention group or control group. The control group will receive usual care physiotherapy and occupational therapy from Monday to Friday while the intervention group will receive the same amount of rehabilitation as the control group Monday to Friday plus a full physiotherapy and occupational therapy service on Saturday. The primary outcomes will be patient length of stay, quality of life (EuroQol questionnaire), the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), and health utilization and cost data. Secondary outcomes will assess clinical outcomes relevant to the goals of therapy: the 10 metre walk test, the timed up and go test, the Personal Care Participation Assessment and Resource Tool (PC PART), and the modified motor assessment scale. Blinded assessors will assess outcomes at admission and discharge, and follow up data on quality of life, function and health care costs will be collected at 6 and 12 months after discharge. Between group differences will be analysed with analysis of covariance using baseline measures as the covariate. A health economic analysis will be carried out alongside the randomised controlled trial.
Discussion This paper outlines the study protocol for the first fully powered randomised controlled trial incorporating a health economic analysis to establish if additional Saturday allied health services for rehabilitation inpatients reduces length of stay without compromising discharge outcomes. If successful, this trial will have substantial health benefits for the patients and for organizations delivering rehabilitation services.
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This article focuses on the relationship between private insurance status and dental service utilisation in Australia using data between 1995 and 2001. This article employs joint maximum likelihood to estimate models of time since last dental visit treating private ancillary health insurance (PAHI) as endogenous. The sensitivity of results to the choice between two different but related types of instrumental variables is examined. We find robust evidence in both 1995 and 2001 that individuals with a PAHI policy make significantly more frequent dental consultations relative to those without such coverage. A comparison of the 1995 and 2001 results, however, suggests that there has been an increasing role of PAHI in terms of the frequency of dental consultations over time. This seems intuitive given the trends in the price of unsubsidised private dental consultations. In terms of policy, our results suggest that while government measures to increase private health insurance coverage in Australia have been successful to a significant degree, that success may have come at some cost in terms of socio-economic inequality as the privately insured are provided much better access to care and financial protection.
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The paper aims to provide a brief overview of key ideas related to outcome measurement relevant to community based mental health services and their consumers in WA. Due to the breadth of scope of the paper, it is not an extensive or rigorous literature review but provides a scan of the literature that could shape a more thorough literature review in any of the content areas. The paper has been written with the aim of informing the sector of key ideas, issues, concepts and approaches.
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Background:
Aim:
To examine the consistency of policies and documentation for withholding in-hospital resuscitation across health services.
Method:
An observational, qualitative review of hospital policy and documentation was conducted in June 2013 in three public and two private sector hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne. Not for resuscitation (NFR) forms were evaluated for physical characteristics, content, authorisation and decision-making. Hospital policies were coded for alerts, definition of futility and burden of treatment and management of discussions and dissent.
Results:
There was a lack of standardisation, with each site using its own unique NFR form and accompanying site-specific policies. Differences were found in who could authorise the decision, what was included on the form, the role of patients and families, and how discussions were managed and dissent resolved. Futility and burden of treatment were not defined independently. These inconsistencies across sites contribute to a lack of clarity regarding the decision to withhold resuscitation, and have implications for staff employed across multiple hospitals.
Conclusions:
NFR forms should be reviewed and standardised so as to be clear, uniform and consistent with the legislative framework. We propose a two-stage process of documentation. Stage 1 facilitates discussion of patient-specific goals of care and consideration of limitations of treatment. Stage 2 serves to communicate a NFR order. Decisions to withhold resuscitation are inherently complex but could be aided by separating the decision-making process from the communication of the decision, resulting in improved end-of-life care.
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PURPOSE: To determine patient, staff and community volunteer opinions and experiences of point of service feedback (POSF) in an inpatient rehabilitation facility. METHOD: Participants were recruited by purposeful sampling. Two researchers conducted in-depth semi-scripted interviews with patients, staff or volunteers until no new issues emerged. Manually transcribed interview data underwent thematic analysis that grouped information into categories of related information. RESULTS: Twenty patients, 26 staff from 10 different professional groups, and 2 community volunteers were interviewed. Patient and volunteer data were grouped into five main categories: patients wanted their voice heard and acted on; patients could be positively and negatively affected by POSF; patients could be reluctant to evaluate staff; patients preferred POSF to post-discharge mailed questionnaires; and patients' feedback was influenced by the data collector. Staff wanted: feedback to help them improve the patient experience; and feedback that was trustworthy, usable and used. Staff believed that the feedback-collector influenced patients' feedback and affected how feedback could be used. CONCLUSIONS: Patients, staff and community volunteers identified issues that determine the appropriateness and usefulness of POSF. Policy and practise should address the preferences, needs and experiences of health service users and providers so that POSF produces maximum benefits for both patients and health services. Implications for Rehabilitation POSF can enhance patients' experiences of inpatient rehabilitation by providing a mechanism to be heard and communicating that patients are valued; care must be exercised with patients who find giving feedback stressful. Collecting POSF is most beneficial when coupled with methods to efficiently and effectively respond to feedback. POSF requires interpretation in light of its limitations including patients' ability to accurately and unreservedly communicate their experiences. Who collects POSF requires careful consideration; community volunteers have both advantages and disadvantages.
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OBJECTIVE: Point of service feedback (POSF) enables patients to give health services feedback about their experiences during or immediately after care. Despite the increasing use of POSF, little is known regarding patients' and staffs' opinions of this practice and whether they consider it acceptable or useful. The study aimed to determine patient and staff opinions regarding POSF. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. SETTING: Acute and subacute healthcare facilities. PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and forty-seven patients and 221 staff. RESULTS: Participants indicated that patients should be invited to evaluate health services when they are in hospital or subacute care and improving services was the most important reason for doing so. Staff indicated that:• collecting patients' feedback during their stay was an important part of providing care and not an interruption to it (n = 187 of 221, 85%).• collecting patients' feedback was best done with a variety of methods; talking directly with patients during their stay was the preferred option (n = 161 of 219, 74%).More patients preferred to:• give feedback during their stay (51%) than after discharge from care (15%).• give feedback by talking with someone (45%) than completing a questionnaire (31%).Some patients (14%) were concerned about reprisal from staff if they gave negative feedback. CONCLUSIONS: POSF can be acceptable and useful for evaluating health services and should be incorporated into a person-centred approach that allows patients to choose from a variety of feedback options both during and after their stay. To be most useful, feedback should be incorporated into a quality improvement system.
