Pathway to credentials

The issue of credentialling infection control practitioners (ICPs) has sparked considerable debate and, at times, concern among the Australian Infection Control Association (AICA) membership. This paper seeks to discuss the relevant issues and inform readers on factors influencing the development of a credentialling process for Australian ICPs. In addition, it outlines the credentialling process, ratified by the AICA executive, that will be implemented for Australian ICPs. [AIC Aust Infect Control 1999; 4(4):21-23.]     

Systematic review of the effectiveness of integrated care pathways: what works, for whom, in which circumstances?

Aim Integrated care pathways (ICP) are management technologies which formalise multidisciplinary team-working and enable professionals to examine their roles and responsibilities. ICPs are now being implemented across international healthcare arena, but evidence to support their use is equivocal. The aim of this study was to identify the circumstances in which ICPs are effective, for whom and in what contexts. Methods A systematic review of high-quality randomised controlled trials published between 1980 and 2008 (March) evaluating ICP use in child and adult populations in the full range of healthcare settings. RESULTS: 1 For relatively predictable trajectories of care ICPs can be effective in supporting proactive care management and ensuring that patients receive relevant clinical interventions and/or assessments in a timely manner. This can lead to improvements in service quality and service efficiency without adverse consequences for patients. 2 ICPs are an effective mechanism for promoting adherence to guidelines or treatment protocols thereby reducing variation in practice. 3 ICPs can be effective in improving documentation of treatment goals, documentation of communication with patients, carers and health professionals. 4 ICPs can be effective in improving physician agreement about treatment options. 5 ICPs can be effective in supporting decision-making when they incorporate a decision-aide. 6 The evidence considered in this review indicates that ICPs may be particularly effective in changing professional behaviours in the desired direction, where there is scope for improvement or where roles are new. 7 Even in contexts in which health professionals are already experienced with a particular pathway, ICP use brings additional beneficial effects in directing professional practice in the desired direction. 8 ICPs may be less effective in bringing about service quality and efficiency gains in variable patient trajectories. 9 ICPs may be less effective in bringing about quality improvements in circumstances in which services are already based on best evidence and multidisciplinary working is well established. 10 Depending on their purpose, the benefits of ICPs may be greater for certain patient subgroups than others. 11 We do not know whether the costs of ICP development and implementation are justified by any of their reported benefits. 12 ICPs may need supporting mechanisms to underpin their implementation and ensure their adoption in practice, particularly in circumstances in which ICP use is a significant change in organisational culture. 13 ICP documentation can introduce scope for new kinds of error. Conclusions ICPs are most effective in contexts where patient care trajectories are predictable. Their value in settings in which recovery pathways are more variable is less clear. ICPs are most effective in bringing about behavioural changes where there are identified deficiencies in services; their value in contexts where inter-professional working is well established is less certain. None of the studies reviewed included an economic evaluation and thus it is not known whether their benefits justify the costs of their implementation.     

Collaboration and local networks for rural and remote primary mental healthcare in South Australia

This paper draws on a consultation with 200 stakeholders about a mental health plan in the most remote region of South Australia to discuss primary mental healthcare improvement strategies. In rural and remote environments, a lack of services means that it is more difficult to deal with a mental illness or provide assistance for circumstantial life problems. The authors' consultations revealed difficulties with service access, acceptability and teamwork. They also found that the availability of local human service workers leads to their use as first-level mental health contacts, but these workers are neither skilled nor supported for this. These difficulties will require attention to the boundaries between different service providers which can otherwise create inflexibility and service gaps. The regional mental health plan that is being rolled out will develop collaboration through regional interagency task groups, networking groups for local human service workers and the position of a regional mental health coordinator in order to overcome these difficulties and to operationalise service partnerships.     

Seeking quality: some experiences in South Africa

Although definitions of quality in healthcare may vary, it is accepted that there are standards towards which we should be aiming. Thus quality improvement is an important part of developing rural health services. At the same time rural settings provide unique challenges to this process. The quality improvement cycle provides a tool to assist rural practitioners wishing to work towards better quality health care. The cycle starts with identifying the problems that need to be addressed and thereafter forming a team to deal with the issues identified. The team together sets standards, which provide targets appropriate to the context and towards which the service should aim. They then gather data to assess how the healthcare service is currently performing in terms of those standards. On the basis of this information, an analysis is made of the problems and their causes, which then allows the team to develop a specific plan to address the important limiting factors in the context. Implementation of the plan continues on an ongoing basis, repeating the steps as needed, with evaluation occurring as part of each cycle to assess whether quality is indeed improving. The process is described as a cycle because it needs to be ongoing, in various ways, as part of continuous quality improvement. Examples of each of the stages of the cycle are given from the South African context as illustrations of the tasks inherent in quality improvement.     

忠县乡镇卫生院基本情况调查报告

农村卫生是我国卫生工作的重点，乡镇卫生院是农村三级医疗预防网的枢纽，在农村防病治病中发挥着重要的作用。为了更好地贯彻全国及重庆市关于农村卫生改革与发展有关文件精神，尽快出台本县实施意见，我们开展了乡镇卫生院的基本情况等一系列调研，旨在了解情况，找出困难与问题，分析原因，提出对策与建议，以便对症下药，进一步加强农村卫生工作。     

A rural-urban comparison of prehospital emergency medical services in Nebraska.

BACKGROUND: Provision of emergency medical services (EMS) in the rural United States presents a unique challenge. While rural and urban EMS outcomes have been compared, differing urban-rural population characteristics and roles for rural ambulance teams can confound such comparisons. METHODS: A year-long study of the prehospital EMS was conducted in rural Richardson County, Nebraska. Data were collected on the age, sex, and race of patients, response time, transport distance, medical problems encountered, and treatment rendered enroute. These data compared with those from an urban Lancaster County comparison group and statistical data from the Nebraska State Health Department. RESULTS: In the rural county, 70 percent of calls involved the elderly, whereas 38 percent of the urban calls and 36 percent of the Nebraska State calls involved the elderly. The rural ambulance service was more likely to provide for routine transfers, to involve patients with fractures and cardiorespiratory and neurologic problems, and twice as likely to result in hospital admission than was the urban ambulance service. The frequency with which advanced life support measures were applied in the rural area was similar to that in the urban area. The rural area response times were equivalent to the urban area response times after the rural area long-distance transfers were excluded. The location of service in the rural area was more likely to be the hospital or nursing home, whereas the urban location was more likely to be a home, on a highway, or in a public setting. CONCLUSIONS: Prehospital EMS in this rural location involved a predominantly elderly population with a large number of routine transfers linking the nursing home and community hospital. Further comparisons of rural and urban EMS outcomes should account for possible differences in type and severity of illness and type and location of service.     

《农村居民健康体检指南》团体标准解读

随着我国老龄化进程的加快,农村居民的健康问题以及健康体检等相关健康服务问题的需求应该引起全社会的关注。中国健康管理协会组织中国疾控中心等多家单位撰写的《农村居民健康体检指南》(T/CHAA 005-2019)团体标准,旨在建立以健康信息收集为手段,以健康风险评估、干预和信息服务为核心,以提高农村居民健康为目标的服务模式。     

A clinically based service limitation option for alternative model rural hospitals

Alternative model rural hospitals are designed to address problems faced by small, isolated rural hospitals. Typically, hospital regulations are reduced in exchange for a limit on the services that alternative models may offer. The most common service limitation is a limit on length of stay (LOS), a method with little empirical or conceptual support. The purpose of this article is to present a clinically based service limitation for alternative model rural hospitals, such as the rural primary care hospital. The proposal is based on an analysis of Medicare discharges from rural hospitals most likely to convert and the judgments of a technical advisory panel of rural clinicians.     

Evolving and expanding: the scope of practice of the infection control practitioner

Infection control practitioners (ICPs) work across the full spectrum of health care settings and carry out a broad range of practice activities. Whilst several studies have reported on the role of the ICP, there has been little investigation of the scope of infection control practice. This knowledge is essential to inform the professional, legal, educational and financial implications of this specialist role. One hundred and thirteen ICPs from a range of health care settings across Queensland were surveyed. Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they were and should be engaging in the range of practices identified by Gardner, Jones & Olesen (1999)¹. Significant differences were evident between what ICPs said was their actual practice versus what they thought they should be doing. Overall, the respondents consistently reported that they should be engaging in more of the range of infection control activities than they were, particularly with regard to management practices. A number of differences were found according to the context in which the practitioners worked, such as the type and size of facility and their employment status. The results of this study indicate that the scope of infection control practice has clearly moved beyond those practices that are confined by the hospital wall and defined by surveillance activities. [AIC Aust Infect Control 2000; 5(3):9-16].     

Uniform national denominator definitions for infection control clinical indicators: surgical site and health care associated blood stream infection

The National Advisory Board (NAB) to the Australian Infection Control Association (AICA) is a multi-disciplinary group representing all regions of Australia. The group comprises infection control practitioners (ICPs), infectious disease physicians, microbiologists, epidemiologists and representatives of other stakeholder groups.Currently, there is wide variation in surveillance practices in Australia. In response, the NAB has developed standard definitions and terminology for surveillance of surgical site (SSI) and health care associated blood stream infection (BSI). Following review of overseas surveillance systems, achievement of consensus among NAB members regarding indicator terminology and methodology, and consultation with end users and stakeholder groups, consensus numerator definitions have been published. In similar fashion, denominator definitions have now been developed and are presented in this article, together with suggestions for evaluating infection outcomes (signal infections) in facilities where rate calculations are not appropriate. These definitions provide Australian ICPs in all health care facilities with a standardised strategy for surveillance. National standardisation of data collection methodology is essential if Australia is to identify acceptable national thresholds for infection rates.     

Implementing computerised workload data collection in rural primary health care

Objective: Describes the implementation of a computerised information system to collect workload data and discusses feedback from staff evaluation of use and value.
Design: Feedback interviews following service implementation.
Setting: Remote rural primary health care, Scotland.
Subjects: Thirty-three primary health care staff.
Main outcome measures: Not relevant, as the study was service development with qualitative evaluation.
Results: Findings of evaluation interviews indicate a number of themes common to remote rural practice that make implementing a computerised information system problematical. These include: logistical problems caused by small practice teams and wide areas covered; inadequate allowance for recording of blurred roles and the wide range of non-clinical duties carried out; lack of local contextual and cultural information, which is necessary to make sense of data collected. Remote rural health professionals found reports from the system of limited value as they felt they already had good knowledge of local activities and had few opportunities, due to small teams, to use data for service redesign.
Conclusion: Remote rural primary care is underpinned by a number of organisational and philosophical features that require understanding when considering the implementation of initiatives developed in an urban working environment.     

Service user involvement and integrated care pathways

PURPOSE: Understanding patients' experiences of their interactions with health services is an important step in building quality from within. The purpose of this article is to look at the possibilities for involving service users in the development of the National Health Service in England through the structure of integrated care pathways (ICPs). DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A systematic literature review was undertaken to identify how patient experiences have been attained and used in three clinical areas: cataract care, hip replacement and knee arthroscopy. The information was weighted according to methodological criteria and synthesized according to the typical stages of each pathway. Key issues were summarised thematically across each pathway. FINDINGS: The findings relate to the use of patient views and experiences within organisational structures, service development, methodological research, education and training. The article identifies important issues of practical significance for involving service users in the planning and development of patient focused ICPs: such as the diversity of patients, perspectives of continuity, information and patient support and the need for methodological research. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The review is limited in that the literature across all three pathways tends to report findings of small studies undertaken in one clinical service or setting and most studies are not randomised or controlled. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The literature identified by the review contains important messages for both NHS policy and future research to involve service users in the planned expansion and plurality of NHS care.     

A comparison of two methods for identifying surgical site infections following orthopaedic surgery

Many infection control practitioners (ICPs) dedicate a significant amount of time and resources to surveillance of surgical site infections (SSIs). Alternative surveillance methods need to be explored to reflect the changes to the healthcare system and the increasing economic constraints placed on infection control units. This study was undertaken to compare two methods of identifying SSIs in orthopaedic surgery. Surveillance data collected routinely by ICPs was compared with data obtained from the International Classification of Disease, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) coding in the medical record. Concordant results between the two methods were obtained. The use of ICD-9-CM coding, as stored in hospital patient administration system databases, has the ability to enhance routine surgical site surveillance programmes. These systems can be used as the basis for screening large data sets for SSIs and identifying where SSIs resulted in patient re-admission. A reduction in the duplication of data and time spent by the ICP on the collection of information for surveillance purposes can be achieved.     

广西城乡居民基本医疗保险运行状况分析

广西城镇居民基本医疗保险和新型农村合作医疗这两项制度在筹资模式、筹资水平、保障水平等主要方面都很相近,并且两项制度在运行中都存在着经办管理能力不足、待遇水平低下、基层医疗服务平台滞后等问题.可以将这两项制度整合统一,建立统一的城乡居民基本医疗保险制度.     

从分散到统一:荷兰基本医疗保险制度改革对我国的启示

2006年1月1日,荷兰基本医疗保险制度进行了大刀阔斧地改革,将3个分散计划(疾病基金保险计划、私人商业医疗保险和公务员医疗保险计划)合并为一个统一的基本医疗保险制度。荷兰改革的根源在于原有医疗保险制度存在分散化带来的不公平性、垄断带来的效率低下等诸多弊端。我国目前的医疗卫生状况与荷兰改革前非常相似,基本医疗保险制度也针对不同人群实施了不同计划(城镇职工基本医疗保险、城镇居民基本医疗保险、公费医疗保险和新型农村合作医疗保险)。荷兰的改革经验对我国基本医疗保险制度改革和医疗卫生体制的构筑具有一定的启示和借鉴意义。     

The health service needs of small rural communities

ABSTRACT: In recent years econometric models used in health service planning have tended to encourage the downgrading or closure of small rural hospitals with the effect of reducing access to services and transferring costs from health authorities to consumers. These changes have occurred despite mounting evidence that people in rural communities have specific health service needs which require special attention. This study aimed to identify the perceptions of community members, health professionals and administrators regarding the health service needs in their small rural communities as a basis for developing a more comprehensive model of rural health service planning. Focus groups were held in three selected towns in Gippsland, exploring participants' perceptions of the meaning of health, health service needs, impact of health services, and the best set-up for health services. Consistent with previous research, key findings include: a broad conceptualisation of health; the perceived overwhelming importance of doctors, hospitals and chemists; the economic and social importance of a rural hospital; and a preference for all health services being provided under the one roof, funding and program flexibility, and local involvement in health service planning and implementation.     

浅析农村妇幼保健服务提供体系的系统理论要求

目的:探讨农村妇幼保健服务提供体系的系统理论要求,及现有体系与这些理论要求间的差距。方法:在大量查阅文献的基础上,以系统论为视角,系统分析构筑高效农村妇幼保健服务提供体系的理论框架,并以该框架为基础,探索发现农村妇幼保健体系服务提供存在的系统问题。结果:构建了包含4个有效性因素的农村妇幼保健体系服务提供模型,并对比分析了农村妇幼保健服务提供体系存在的5个方面不足。结论:导致农村妇幼保健服务提供体系存在系统问题既有内部管理体制及运行机制的原因,也有外在模糊功能定位及无序竞争环境的原因,因此,需在全面系统的分析影响因素的基础上,充分考虑各利益相关集团的利益取向,才能够提出具有可行性、操作性的政策建议。     

我国农村卫生事业发展中存在的主要问题与对策

改革开放以后,我国农村卫生事业发展的社会环境产生了重大变化,农村原有的合作医疗因失去集体经济的依托而解体。目前农村卫生事业存在一系列问题,绝大多数农村没有建立医疗保障制度。各级政府要从“三个代表”重要思想的高度来认识农村卫生事业改革和发展的重要性。采取必要的措施,加强卫生体制改革,加大财政投入,优化资源配置,提高乡村卫生的医疗水平,建立多种形式的农村医疗保障制度。     

The Role of Interorganizational Partnerships in Health Services Provision Among Rural,Suburban, and Urban Local Health Departments

Context: With limited resources and increased public health challenges facing the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have identified partnerships between local health departments (LHDs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as critical to the public health system. LHDs utilize financial, human, and informational resources and develop partnerships with local NGOs to provide public health services. Purpose: Our study had 2 primary goals: (1) compare resources and partnerships characterizing rural, suburban, and urban LHDs, and (2) determine whether partnerships play a mediating role between LHD resources and the services LHDs provide. Methods: We conducted secondary data analysis using the National Association of County and City Health Officials 2005 Profile Study. We used chi-squared and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine differences between rural, suburban, and urban LHDs. We used regression-based mediation methods to test whether partnerships mediated the relationship between resources and service provision. Findings: We found significant differences between LHDs. Urban LHDs serve larger jurisdictions, have larger budgets and more staff, cultivate more partnerships with local NGOs, and provide more health services than suburban or rural LHDs. We found that partnerships were a partial mediator between resources and service provision. In playing a mediating role, partnerships reduce differences in service provision between rural, suburban, and urban LHDs. Conclusions: Partnerships mediate the relationship between resources and service provision in LHDs. LHDs could place more emphasis on cultivating relationships with local NGOs in order to increase service provision. This strategy may be especially useful for rural LHDs facing limited resources and numerous health disparities.