Professional status in a changing world: The case of medicines use reviews in English community pharmacy

The health professions are engaged in an ongoing and dynamic process involving reflection and adaptation, with factors such as socio-economic and cultural developments and technological innovations compelling professions to respond to changed circumstances. This paper concerns English community pharmacy, where recent reforms provide financial incentives to deliver interventions, which have the potential for pharmacists to promote their knowledge and skills, as part of a professionalising strategy. The paper, drawing on interviews with 49 pharmacists, describes how responses to reforms are not necessarily in accordance with either national policy goals or enhancement of professional status. Debates about professional status and role extension have often focused on health professions’ subordination to medicine. This paper highlights the importance and interplay of other factors which help explain the inability to capitalise fully on the potential contribution to professional status, which reforms to extend professional roles afford.     

以社区为导向的初级卫生保健：比利时社区卫生服务案例分析及启示

比利时的社区卫生服务模式对我国社区卫生服务改革具有借鉴意义。在对比利时一家典型的社区卫生服务中心进行现场考察和案例研究的基础上,总结了其开展社区卫生服务的做法：虽然存在缺乏首诊制度和沟通协调方面的问题,但以社区为导向的多学科协同服务和按人头付费的支付方式改革等做法成效显著。针对我国社区卫生服务改革中存在的问题,提出相关的政策建议,包括建立和完善法律、政策和制度设计;加强多学科的服务团队建设,推动医学模式在社区转变;完善医保配套政策支撑与激励;以社区需求为导向开展跨部门行动,引导社会资源整合。     

Patient outcomes following an intervention involving community pharmacists in the management of depression

OBJECTIVE: Documentation and evaluation of patient outcomes in a pilot study into the role of rural community pharmacists in the management of depression. DESIGN: Parallel groups design with a control and intervention group. SETTING: Thirty-two community pharmacies in rural and remote New South Wales, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and six patient participants, mean age of 46 years, predominantly female, not currently employed, recruited by participating pharmacists. INTERVENTIONS: Intervention pharmacists were given video-conference training on the nature and management of depression by a psychiatrist, psychologist and general practitioner and asked to dispense medication with extra advice and support. Control pharmacists were asked to provide usual care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Adherence by self-report, K10, Drug Attitude Index. Results: The results indicated that adherence to medications was high in both groups (95% versus 96%) and that both groups had improved significantly in wellbeing (a reduction K10 score of 4 (control) versus 4.7 (intervention)). No significant change was found in attitude to drug treatment once baseline scores were controlled for. CONCLUSIONS: Because both groups improved in wellbeing it is not possible to claim that the training provided to the intervention pharmacists was responsible for the success. However, the improvements gained in such a short time (two months) suggest that the involvement of pharmacists has had a beneficial rather than negative effect. Further research into the most appropriate ways in which to integrate the skills of pharmacists into a model of mental health care delivery in rural communities is recommended.     

Clinical wastes in the community: local authority management of clinical wastes from domestic premises

Background: The increasing numbers of patients receiving often complex home-based health care, and the growing number of insulin-dependent diabetic, home haemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis patients, contributes to the substantial volumes of clinical waste generated from domestic premises. Arrangements for the collection and safe disposal of these potentially hazardous wastes, generally managed by local authorities, may be inadequate and, in part, unsafe.

Methods

This study audited the websites of the 526 local authorities in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Websites were scrutinized for information concerning clinical waste collections from domestic premises, the limits and constraints on this service, service accessibility, the practical arrangements for collection of wastes, and the health and safety issues of clinical waste management for patients who manage their own care in the community.

Results

Two hundred and sixty-two of 526 (50%) local authorities provided information on their websites concerning the collection of clinical wastes from domestic premises. Others referred patients to a district or county council, to another agency or to private contractors (n=72), while the remainder provided an in-house collection service. Weekly collections were most common, although several local authorities offered additional flexibility depending on need. Limits on the minimum or maximum volumes of waste to be collected, or on the types of clinical wastes accepted for disposal, do not support domicillary health care and create an additional burden for patients and their carers. Of particular concern was the health and safety implication of instructions to place potentially hazardous clinical wastes in a freely accessible location outside the home, at the doorstep or on the footpath, as early as 4 am on the day of collection or the night before collection.

Conclusions

The arrangements for local authority clinical waste collections from domestic premises are, in part, inadequate and may be unsafe. The arrangements do not properly support domicillary patients or their carers.     

Best Practice Recommendations for Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Dataset Structure and Standardization to Support Drug Development

The electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) Dataset Structure and Standardization Project is a multistakeholder initiative formed by Critical Path Institute’s PRO Consortium and Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA) Consortium to address issues related to ePRO dataset structure and standardization and to provide best practice recommendations for clinical trial sponsors and eCOA providers. Given the many benefits of utilizing electronic modes to capture PRO data, clinical trials are increasingly using these methods, yet there are challenges to using data generated by eCOA systems. Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) standards are used in clinical trials to ensure consistency in data collection, tabulation, and analysis and to facilitate regulatory submission. Currently, ePRO data are not required to follow a standard model, and the data models used often vary by eCOA provider and sponsor. This lack of consistency creates risks for programming and analysis and difficulties for analytics functions generating the required analysis and submission datasets. There is a disconnect between data standards used for study data submission and those used for data collection via case report forms and ePRO forms, which would be mitigated through the application of CDISC standards for ePRO data capture and transfer. The project was formed to collate and examine the issues arising from the lack of adoption of standardized approaches and this paper details recommendations to address those issues.Recommendations to address issues with ePRO dataset structure and standardization include adopting CDISC standards in the ePRO data platform, timely involvement of key stakeholders, ensuring ePRO controls are implemented, addressing issues of missing data early in development, ensuring quality control and validation of ePRO datasets, and use of read-only datasets.     

三城市出院病人对社区卫生服务的认知与评价研究

基于北京、上海和南宁3城市4所三甲医院的1095名出院病人的电话问卷调查和访谈,了解出院病人对社区卫生服务的认知和评价,分析医院和社区卫生服务机构双向转诊过程中存在的问题与障碍。     

社区卫生服务改革的模式演进与版本升级研究——以上海市长宁区为例

任何改革在基层的实施都需要转换成一系列的制度安排或微观行为激励机制,不仅确保基层行动者之间的行为策略激励相容,还要确保基层行动者的行为模式与改革政策目标方向相一致。从上海市长宁区社区卫生服务改革的实践来看,其大致经过了四个阶段:标准化建设与组织确立、服务模式与机制改革、激励设计与内涵建设、平台打造与效能提升。长宁医改在不断深化政策试验与制度创新的过程中逐步化解新医改政策实施过程所产生的各类新问题及其与环境的相容性问题,以实现医改政策的制度化并为利益相关者的福利改进提供稳定的行为预期,从而不断降低基层行动者对政策实施的潜在抵制行为,逐步地将各类行动者的行为激励引导到与政策目标相一致的方向。     

社区居民电子健康档案使用障碍研究

目的对国内外社区居民电子健康档案使用障碍进行分析,为推动我国电子健康档案建设提供参考。方法检索PubMed、Web of Science和中国生物医学文献数据库2013年1月1日-2021年2月1日相关文献,提取第一作者、年份、国家/地区、使用障碍等信息。结果共纳入17篇文献。社区居民电子健康档案使用障碍包括个人障碍、隐私和安全、技术障碍和外界障碍共4类,其中,隐私和安全问题是出现频数最高的障碍类型,个人障碍是我国纳入文献中出现频数最高的障碍类型。结论个人认知和一般社会人口学特征以及隐私和安全问题是阻碍我国社区居民使用电子健康档案的主要因素。建议我国相关部门多渠道、分人群宣传电子健康档案;完善居民隐私保护措施,提高居民隐私保护意识;建立统一的电子健康档案管理平台;健全“建档-管档-用档”体系。     

Residential Segregation and the Availability of Primary Care Physicians

Objective

To examine the association between residential segregation and geographic access to primary care physicians (PCPs) in metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs).

Data Sources

We combined zip code level data on primary care physicians from the 2006 American Medical Association master file with demographic, socioeconomic, and segregation measures from the 2000 U.S. Census. Our sample consisted of 15,465 zip codes located completely or partially in an MSA.

Methods

We defined PCP shortage areas as those zip codes with no PCP or a population to PCP ratio of >3,500. Using logistic regressions, we estimated the association between a zip code''s odds of being a PCP shortage area and its minority composition and degree of segregation in its MSA.

Principal Findings

We found that odds of being a PCP shortage area were 67 percent higher for majority African American zip codes but 27 percent lower for majority Hispanic zip codes. The association varied with the degree of segregation. As the degree of segregation increased, the odds of being a PCP shortage area increased for majority African American zip codes; however, the converse was true for majority Hispanic and Asian zip codes.

Conclusions

Efforts to address PCP shortages should target African American communities especially in segregated MSAs.     

Chasing the dragon: Developing indicators for the assessment of community participation in health programmes

Community participation was identified as one of the key components of Primary Health Care as articulated in the Alma Ata declaration of 1978 and is enjoying a renewal of interest in both low and high income countries. There remains, however, an on-going challenge in how to assess its role in achieving health improvements. This is largely due to the multiplicity of definitions of community participation, which has made it difficult to evaluate its impact on desired programme outcomes, such as uptake and sustainability, as well as broader health improvements. This paper addresses this challenge by first defining a continuum of community participation that captures its many forms, and then incorporates this into an evaluation framework that enables an analysis of the process of participation and links this with health and programme outcomes. The continuum of participation and framework is based upon the spidergram of Rifkin, Muller, and Bichmann (1988), but modified in the light of the growing literature on community participation and also in relation to our original requirements to evaluate the role of community participation in nutrition-related child survival programmes. A case-study is presented to provide a worked example of the evaluation framework and its utility in the evaluation of community participation. While this is a literature-based and retrospective analysis, it demonstrates how the evaluation tool enables a nuanced analysis of the different ways in which communities can participate in the delivery of health-related interventions. It could be used prospectively by those involved in programme design and implementation to further our understanding of community participation and its relationship with health outcomes, as well as key programme outcomes, such as sustainability.     

城市老年人社区护理服务需求与影响因素调查

目的调查城市社区老年人健康需求,提出老年人健康管理对策。方法采取问卷调查和深入访谈相结合的方式收集相关数据,运用SPSS16.0进行数据分析。结果老年人两周患病与患病而未就诊比例高,在健康项目管理中有87%的老年人同时选择了健康教育、健康咨询和定期体检3项,老年人就诊受多种因素的影响。结论城市社区应以老年人需求为导向开发适宜技术,建立适宜性老年社区护理模式。     

Barriers to the community support of orphans and vulnerable youth in Rwanda

A consistent theme in the literature on interventions for orphans and vulnerable children is the need for community-based care. However, a number of socio-cultural factors may impede community response. In this study, mixed methods are used to elucidate community-level barriers to care for orphans and vulnerable youth in Rwanda. Data from a large survey of youth heads of household on perceptions of marginalization from the community and the factors predicting that marginalization are considered in light of additional data from a survey of adults who volunteered to mentor these youth and focus groups with both community adults and youth heads of household. Results highlight how orphans' impoverished condition, cause of parents' death, and community perceptions of orphan behavior play a role in the marginalization of orphaned youth in Rwanda. Evidence is also offered to show that targeting humanitarian assistance to vulnerable youth may inadvertently lessen the level of community support they receive and contribute to their marginalization. The implications of these data for community-based program approaches are discussed.     

北京市社区居民长期护理保险购买和参与意愿及其影响因素研究

目的：分析北京市社区居民对长期护理保险及其护理服务提供的意愿,探讨北京市社区居民对长期护理保险购买/参与意愿的影响因素及其制度设计、服务提供模式、保险给付方式等的选择,为促进北京市长期护理保险制度的建设提供建议。方法：采用分层多阶段的抽样方法,从北京市16个区抽取10个社区卫生服务中心,自行设计调查问卷,以406名社区居民作为研究对象开展问卷调查,单因素分析采用χ²检验,多因素分析采用多元Logistic回归开展统计学分析。结果：31.8%的社区居民愿意购买/参与长期护理保险,41.1%的被访者保持中立态度,27.1%的被访者表示不愿意购买/参与长期护理保险。分析发现,年龄、职业、婚姻状况、失能人员数量、长期护理保险了解程度对居民购买/参与长期护理保险的意愿影响,且影响具有统计学意义。结论：北京市社区居民对长期护理保险了解程度不高,且多数居民购买/参与长期护理保险的意愿不明确,还处于中立态度,在长期护理服务模式上多数居民倾向于居家护理和社区居家护理,北京市建立长期护理保险制度应加大政策宣传、实现覆盖范围的普及性、服务提供的多样性。     

A protocol for determining differences in consistency and depth of palliative care service provision across community sites

Numerous accounts document the difficulty in obtaining accurate data regarding the extent and composition of palliative care services. Compounding the problem is the lack of standardisation regarding categorisation and reporting across jurisdictions. In this study, we gathered both quantitative and spatial – or geographical – data to develop a composite picture that captures the extent, composition and depth of palliative care in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). The province is intensely urban in the southwest and is rural or remote in most of the remainder. For this study, we conducted a detailed telephone survey of all palliative care home care teams and facilities hosting designated beds in BC. We used geographic information systems to geocode locations of all hospice and hospital facilities. In‐home care data was obtained individually from each of five BC regional health authorities. In addition, we purchased accurate road travel time data to determine service areas around palliative facilities and to determine populations outside of a 1‐hour travel time to a facility. With this data, we were able to calculate three critical metrics: (i) the population served within 1 hour of palliative care facilities – and more critically those not served; (ii) a matrix that determines access to in‐home palliative care measured by both diversity of professionals as well as population served per palliative team member; and (iii) a ranking of palliative care services across the province based on physical accessibility as well as the extent of in‐home care. In combination, these metrics provide the basis for identifying areas of vulnerability with respect to not meeting potential palliative care need. In addition, the ranking provides a basis for rural/urban comparisons. Finally, the protocol introduced can be used in other areas and provides a means of comparing palliative care service provision amongst multiple jurisdictions.     

Assessing Capacity and Disease Burden in a Virtual Network of New York City Primary Care Providers Following Hurricane Sandy

Urban contexts introduce unique challenges that must be addressed to ensure that areas of high population density can function when disasters occur. The ability to generate useful data to guide decision-making is critical in this context. Widespread adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems in recent years has created electronic data sources and networks that may play an important role in public health surveillance efforts, including in post-disaster situations. The Primary Care Information Project (PCIP) at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has partnered with local clinicians to establish an electronic data system, and this network provides infrastructure to support primary care surveillance activities in New York City. After Hurricane Sandy, PCIP generated several sets of data to contribute to the city’s efforts to assess the impact of the storm, including daily connectivity data to establish practice operations, data to examine patterns of primary care utilization in severely affected and less affected areas, and data on the frequency of respiratory infection diagnosis in the primary care setting. Daily patient visit data from three heavily affected neighborhoods showed the health department where primary care capacity was most affected in the weeks following Sandy. Overall transmission data showed that practices in less affected areas were quicker to return to normal reporting patterns, while those in more affected areas did not resume normal data transmissions for a few months. Rates of bronchitis increased after Sandy compared to the two prior years; while this was most likely attributable to a more severe flu season, it demonstrates the capacity of primary care networks to pick up on these types of post-emergency trends. Hurricane Sandy was the first disaster situation where PCIP was asked to assess public health impact, generating information that could contribute to aid and recovery efforts. This experience allowed us to explore the strengths and weaknesses of ambulatory EHR data in post-disaster settings. Data from ambulatory EHR networks can augment existing surveillance streams by providing sentinel population snapshots on clinically available indicators in near real time.     

英国购买式社区照顾服务模式的发展、改革及启示

英国是当前福利国家中社区照顾历史最悠久的国家,迄今已逾六十年。英国社区照顾服务供给模式的建构深受新自由主义和新管理主义影响,这些意识形态主导了英国历届政府关于购买社区照顾服务的改革与完善。当前,我国正积极推进医养结合、长期照护政策,并确定社区为主的发展模式。本文在借鉴英国购买式社区照顾服务经验并结合中国国情的基础上,提出政府角色重新定位、积极扶持民间服务组织发展及完善购买式照顾服务法律体系等建议,以期减轻政府负担、增强照顾服务效率和提高照顾服务质量。     

The role of health insurance in explaining immigrant versus non-immigrant disparities in access to health care: Comparing the United States to Canada

Using a cross-national comparative approach, we examined the influence of health insurance on U.S. immigrant versus non-immigrant disparities in access to primary health care. With data from the 2002/2003 Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health, we gathered evidence using three approaches: 1) we compared health care access among insured and uninsured immigrants and non-immigrants within the U.S.; 2) we contrasted these results with health care access disparities between immigrants and non-immigrants in Canada, a country with universal health care; and 3) we conducted a novel direct comparison of health care access among insured and uninsured U.S. immigrants with Canadian immigrants (all of whom are insured). Outcomes investigated were self-reported unmet medical needs and lack of a regular doctor. Logistic regression models controlled for age, sex, nonwhite status, marital status, education, employment, and self-rated health. In the U.S., odds of unmet medical needs of insured immigrants were similar to those of insured non-immigrants but far greater for uninsured immigrants. The effect of health insurance was even more striking for lack of regular doctor. Within Canada, disparities between immigrants and non-immigrants were similar in magnitude to disparities seen among insured Americans. For both outcomes, direct comparisons of U.S. and Canada revealed significant differences between uninsured American immigrants and Canadian immigrants, but not between insured Americans and Canadians, stratified by nativity. Findings suggest health care insurance is a critical cause of differences between immigrants and non-immigrants in access to primary care, lending robust support for the expansion of health insurance coverage in the U.S. This study also highlights the usefulness of cross-national comparisons for establishing alternative counterfactuals in studies of disparities in health and health care.