Quality in primary care最新文献

Background: The National Health Service (NHS) has announced its new target to increase the 'shockingly low dementia diagnosis rate' in England from the current level of 45% to 66% by end of March 2015. Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England have committed to meeting this target. The Norfolk and Suffolk dementia diagnosis rate (DDR) is below the rate for England in some areas; across the CCGs included in this study, the average DDR was 39.9% with a standard deviation of 5.3.

Aims: This study aimed to explore and understand the low DDR in Norfolk and Suffolk and to learn what might be needed to support general practitioners (GPs) to meet the targets set by the UK Department of Health.

Methods: An online survey was developed including questions from the National GP Audit 2009. The link to the online survey was sent via email to all GPs in four participating CCGs in Norfolk and Suffolk. SPSS was used for descriptive analysis. Chi-square tests were conducted to identify significant differences in response rates between groups of GPs.

Results: The survey was completed by 28% (N = 113) of 400 GPs in 108 practices across three CCGs receiving the survey link. There was a significant difference in response rates from GPs in each CCG, but there were no significant differences in terms of their answers to the questions in the survey. GP respondents expressed confidence in their ability to identify cases of dementia for onward referral to memory services. Participating GPs also acknowledged the benefits to patients and their carers of a timely dementia diagnosis at an early stage of the disease. However, they reported concerns about the quality and availability of post-diagnostic support services for people with dementia and their carers. In this survey, GPs' attitudes were more positive about diagnosing dementia than those responding to the National Audit 2009.

Conclusions: Despite GPs' attitudes being more positive than in 2009 about diagnosing dementia, the Norfolk and Suffolk DDR remains low. This may reflect lack of GP confidence in the quality and availability of post-diagnostic support services. This study has identified a need to map the existing post-diagnostic support services for people with dementia and to identify gaps in services. This could lead to the development of a resource which might enable GPs to provide relevant advice to newly diagnosed patients and their carers, facilitate signposting to support services, and give GPs confidence to increase the DDR in their area.

Background: The substantial prevalence of bacterial lower urinary tract infections (LUTIs) in out-of-hours (OOH) primary care is a reason for frequent prescription of antibiotics. Insight in guideline adherence in OOH primary care concerning treatment of LUTIs is lacking.

Aims: To check feasibility of the use of OOH routine data to assess guideline adherence for the treatment of LUTI in OOH primary care, in different regions of Europe.

Methods: We compared guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of uncomplicated LUTIs in nine European countries, followed by an observational study on available data of guideline adherence. In each region a convenience sample of registration data of at least 100 contacts per OOH primary care setting was collected. Data on adherence (% of contacts) was identified for type of antibiotic and for full treatment adherence (i.e. recommended type and dose and duration).

Results: Six countries were able to provide data on treatment of LUTIs. Four of them succeeded to collect data on type, dosage and duration of treatment. Mostly, trimethoprim was the treatment of first choice, sometimes combined with sulfamethoxazol or sulfamethizol. Adherence with the type of antibiotics varied from 25% to 100%. Denmark achieved a full treatment adherence of 40.0%, the Netherlands 72.7%, Norway 38.3%, and Slovenia 22.2%.

Conclusion: Guidelines content is similar to a large extent in the participating countries. The use of OOH routine data for analysis of guideline adherence in OOH primary care seems feasible, although some challenges remain. Adherence regarding treatment varies and suggests room for improvement in most countries.

The patient perspective is central to quality improvement. This article describes how health services are involving individuals and the public in improving healthcare. It describes the importance and different methods of accessing patient and carer feedback on satisfaction, experience and outcomes, and explores current thinking on individual involvement, engagement in commissioning, and the role of the public in redesigning health services.

Background: The rising prevalence of obesity and diabetes in Kuwait represents a significant challenge for the country's healthcare system. Diabetes care in Scotland has improved by adopting a system of managed clinical networks supported by a national informatics platform. In 2010, a Kuwait-Dundee collaboration was established with a view to transforming diabetes care in Kuwait. This paper describes the significant progress that has been made to date.

Methods: The Kuwait-Scotland eHealth Innovation Network (KSeHIN) is a partnership among health, education, industry and government. KSeHIN aims to deliver a package of clinical service development, education (including a formal postgraduate programme and continuing professional development) and research underpinned by a comprehensive informatics system.

Results: The informatics system includes a disease registry for children and adults with diabetes. At the patient level, the system provides an overview of clinical and operational data. At the population level, users view key performance indicators based on national standards of diabetes care established by KSeHIN. The national childhood registry (CODeR) accumulates approximately 300 children a year. The adult registry (KHN), implemented in four primary healthcare centres in 2013, has approximately 4000 registered patients, most of whom are not yet meeting national clinical targets. A credit-bearing postgraduate educational programme provides module-based teaching and workplace-based projects. In addition, a new clinical skills centre provides simulator-based training. Over 150 masters students from throughout Kuwait are enrolled and over 400 work-based projects have been completed to date.

Conclusion: KSeHIN represents a successful collaboration between multiple stakeholders working across traditional boundaries. It is targeting patient outcomes, system performance and professional development to provide a sustainable transformation in the quality of diabetes healthcare for the growing population of Kuwaitis with diabetes in Kuwait.

Background: The global economic crisis has affected Greece. Data on patients' adherence to medications for chronic diseases are missing. The objective of this study was to identify to what extent the financial crisis and the repeated pharmacists strike have influenced patients adherence to therapy.

Methods:

Design: A quantitative and qualitative study in rural Crete was designed and implemented in February 2013 with the use of a pretested questionnaire with opened and closed questions. Setting Rural practices in a well-defined geographical area of Crete.

Subject: The questionnaire was addressed in all patients that visited the rural practices with chronic or acute diseases for two consecutive weeks. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Age, annual income, adherence to therapy, patient's views and feelings.

Results: 288 patients participated. The mean age was 68±6.87. The majority of the patients have lowered the doses of several medications by themselves as they weren't able to afford the cost ie; all patients receiving insulin had lowered the dosages; 46.42% of patients with COPD or asthma had stopped their medications completely, decreased dosages or used similar medications that had in the past; patients with dislipidemia received their medications as suggested only in 51.8%. Patients with cardiovascular diseases received their medications as suggested in 75.6% while the rest have dismissed or skipped dosages. Most common emotions reported were those of sadness, fear, stress, anxiety and isolation.

Conclusions: The economic crisis has influenced patients' adherence to therapy in rural areas as well as their psychological and emotional status. There is an urgent need for action within the context of primary care.

Introduction: In the current financial climate faced by the NHS, it is important that we reduce the amount of inappropriate referrals made to secondary care specialties. ENT Emergency Clinics are one-stop clinics provided by many UK ENT departments to allow more rapid access to ENT services from primary care. However, many referrals to these clinics were considered to be inappropriate, overloading the clinic and delaying referrals to more specialist clinics. We conducted a service improvement project through introduction of referral guidelines and liaising with local GPs.

Methods: We carried out an initial audit of ENT referrals over a one-month period, which suggested that 31% (69/225) of referrals were inappropriate. We developed a guideline referral proforma that included six specific conditions and details of subspecialist clinics available. This was circulated among GPs and A&E doctors and backed up by hospital teaching sessions. Two months later we repeated the audit.

Results: Following introduction of guidelines there was a significant reduction in inappropriate referrals from 31% (69/225) to 16% (28/179), p<0.01. Despite significant improvements overall, the proportion of inappropriate referrals from GPs remained higher than those from the local A&E department in both Cycle 1 (42% vs.24%, p<0.01) and Cycle 2 (23% vs. 5%, p<0.01).

Discussion and conclusion: Devising and circulating guideline proformas in conjunction with local education for referring doctors may help reduce the number of inappropriate ENT referrals. This simple and cheap intervention could be used more widely and developed in primary care departments in partnership with local hospitals. Our study also highlights the challenges encountered when introducing new guidelines that affect referrals from doctors in the community. Increasing opportunities for GP trainees to gain some exposure to common conditions presenting to primary care might reduce inappropriate ENT referrals in the future.

The systems-based management of laboratory test ordering and results handling is a significant patient safety concern in primary care internationally. In this pilot study, we describe the testing of a method to systematically measure and monitor compliance with basic safe performance in this area in different European primary care settings. The findings show high overall compliance with the safe system measures developed although the data indicates performance variation within and between the different systems audited, which suggests that aspects of the reliability (and safety) of these systems could be improved by care teams. However, the overall utility of the method is still to be determined and this will require testing on a greater scale in more diverse practices with larger samples of patients and blood tests, and using different technology support systems.

This is the tenth in a series of articles about the science of quality improvement. We explore how evidence-based healthcare relates to quality improvement, implementation science and the translation of evidence to improve healthcare practice and patient outcomes. Evidence-based practice integrates the individual practitioner's experience, patient preferences and the best available research information. Incorporating the best available research evidence in decision making involves five steps: asking answerable questions, accessing the best information, appraising the information for validity and relevance, applying the information to care of patients and populations, and evaluating the impact for evidence of change and expected outcomes. Major barriers to implementing evidence-based practice include the impression among practitioners that their professional freedom is being constrained, lack of appropriate training and resource constraints. Incentives including financial incentives, guidance and regulation are increasingly being used to encourage evidence-based practice.