Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care最新文献

Entering any new healthcare system today requires thorough knowledge about its quality and safety structure and culture. Learning that language is generally the first step in gaining a better understanding of how systems function. This overview of common mnemonics in the quality and safety world will provide the reader with better comprehension of their quality systems within their institutions. Healthcare providers should understand how patient safety organizations were established and the importance of our safety event classification system, along with the ability to recognize gaps in care that highlight opportunities for improvement. In addition, this review provides explanations of error prevention tools used every day to help new colleagues communicate better and share situational awareness to keep patients safe. Lastly, utilization of standard quality improvement tools can facilitate quality improvement projects and assist all healthcare systems to become highly reliable organizations.

Healthcare systems continue to struggle with providing safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centered (STEEEP) care. Upon audit by clinicians, treatment processes such as those completed following clinical pathways appear to manage care safely. However, when reviewing the treatment process through the patient and/or their family's lens, the experience is quite different. This article will use a vignette detailing care provided in a primary care physician's office along with the patient's outpatient testing experience to reveal opportunities for improvement, a glimpse into the patient's experience and share methods for achieving STEEEP healthcare.

Quality Improvement (QI) knowledge and skills are required at all levels of physician training. System improvement efforts need to include understanding of health disparities and design of interventions to reduce those disparities, thus health equity needs to be integrated into QI education. Payors, accreditation bodies and health systems’ emphases on QI result in the need for QI curricula that meet the needs of diverse learners. This article presents a theoretical background and practical tools for designing, implementing, and evaluating a QI educational program across the spectrum of physician training with an emphasis on competency-based education and a goal of continuous practice improvement. Practice-based learning and improvement and systems-based practice are two core domains of competencies for readiness to practice. These competencies can be met through the health systems science framework for studying improvement in patient care and health care delivery coupled with QI science. Curricula should incorporate interactive learning of theory and principles of QI as well as mentored, experiential QI project work with multidisciplinary teams. QI projects often develop ideas and implement changes but are often inconsistent in studying intervention impacts or reaching the level of patient outcomes. Curriculum design should incorporate adult learning principles, competency based medical education, environmental and audience factors, and formats for content delivery. Key QI topics and how they fit into the clinical environment and teaching resources are provided, as well as options for faculty development. Approaches to evaluation are presented, along with tools for assessing learner's beliefs and attitudes, knowledge and application of QI principles, project evaluation, competency and curriculum evaluation. If the goal is to empower the next generation of change agents, there remains a need for development of scientific methodology and scholarly work, as well as faculty development and support by institutions.

Breast masses are infrequently encountered in pediatric and adolescent populations. Most breast masses in children are benign entities arising from embryological defects which can be managed once breast development is complete. Diagnostic and management dilemmas arise when fibroepithelial lesions of the breast are seen in clinical practice. Differentiation between a fibroadenoma and a phyllodes tumor is important to guide management. Breast cancer in children under 18 years of age is extremely rare and invasive diagnostic testing and aggressive management is only recommended when clinical suspicion of malignancy is very high. Patient and caregiver counseling plays an important role in the management of these diseases. While adult-onset breast diseases have been studied very closely, there is a dearth of literature on pediatric breast anomalies. This review aims to provide a scoping overview of the available literature on benign, fibroepithelial, and malignant lesions of the breast in pediatric and adolescent populations to help guide physicians and surgeons with decision-making regarding the diagnosis and management of pediatric breast diseases.

This narrative review examines the literature on credible messenger mentoring (CMM) as an intervention to promote the health and well-being of youth involved in the juvenile legal system. In the CMM model, individuals with shared life experiences (e.g., from the same neighborhoods or marginalized communities, with former gang or incarceration history) serve as mentors, leveraging their own history of transformation to engage youth involved in the juvenile legal system and promote individual and community change. CMM is an increasingly popular approach for working with youth involved in the juvenile legal system, yet the state of the research on this intervention is unclear. This article provides a narrative review of existing research on CMM to understand what is known, and unknown, about the intervention. Results find an emerging, but incomplete body of evidence supporting the impact of CMM for youth involved in the juvenile legal system, and for adult mentors. Qualitative and observational findings provide stronger support for the model, while quantitative findings provide more mixed evidence, indicating that CMM may be a promising life course health intervention, yet needs more empirical study. Findings from this review underscore the value of integrating community-informed evidence in the evaluation of health interventions. Future research can inform contemporary interest in the CMM approach and guide implementation and measurement standards for optimizing intervention delivery with youth involved in the juvenile legal system.