Journal for Healthcare Quality : Official Publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality

INTRODUCTION: To improve quality of healthcare, patient information must be thorough and easy to understand. This is important in day surgery where patients are seen less often by health practitioners. We looked at the impact of improving patient information in the setting of day-case hemorrhoidectomy in terms of patient satisfaction and whether medical attention was sought after the operation. METHODS: A retrospective, comparative study was performed on 60 patients undergoing day-case hemorrhoidectomy and on 60 patients undergoing the same operation with improved patient information...

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Severe preeclampsia/eclampsia and postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) are serious obstetric problems worldwide. Quality improvement of care measured by evidence-based indicators is recommended as a recent important strategy; however, the indicators for quality of care of these two conditions have not been established. This study aimed to develop such indicators and assess their validity, reliability, and feasibility at different contextual levels. Of 32 initially valid indicators for care of severe preeclampsia/eclampsia, after two rounds of Delphi technique, 21 and 30 indicators were agreed to be suitable to monitor care at district and referral hospitals...

OBJECTIVE: To assess obstetrician-gynecologists' (ob-gyns') use of multiple conflicting guidelines assess after the release of the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) breast cancer screening recommendations. STUDY DESIGN: A nationally representative sample of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Fellows were invited to complete a survey. RESULTS: A total of 235 of 399 ob-gyns responded (59% response rate)...

The team functioning assessment tool (TFAT) has been shown to be a reliable behavioral marker tool for assessing nontechnical skills that are critical to the success of ward-based healthcare teams. This paper aims to refine and shorten the length of the TFAT to improve usability, and establish its reliability and construct validity. Psychometric testing based on 110 multidisciplinary healthcare teams demonstrated that the TFAT is a reliable and valid tool for measuring team members' nontechnical skills in regards to Clinical Planning, Executive Tasks, and Team Functioning...

Reducing medical error is critical to improving the safety and quality of healthcare. Physician stress, fatigue, and excessive workload are performance-shaping factors (PSFs) that may influence medical events (actual administration errors and near misses), but direct relationships between these factors and patient safety have not been clearly defined. This study assessed the real-time influence of emotional stress, workload, and sleep deprivation on self-reported medication events by physicians in academic hospitals...

Catastrophic medical malpractice payouts, $1 million or greater, greatly influence physicians' practice, hospital policy, and discussions of healthcare reform. However, little is known about the specific characteristics and overall cost burden of these payouts. We reviewed all paid malpractice claims nationwide using the National Practitioner Data Bank over a 7-year period (2004-2010) and used multivariate regression to identify risk factors for catastrophic and increased overall payouts. Claims with catastrophic payouts represented 7...

A strong and inverse relationship between patient satisfaction and wait times in ambulatory care settings has been demonstrated. Despite its relevance to key medical practice outcomes, timeliness of care in primary care settings has not been widely studied. The goal of the quality improvement project described here was to increase patient satisfaction by minimizing wait times using the Dartmouth Microsystem Improvement Curriculum (DMIC) framework and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) improvement process. Following completion of an initial PDSA cycle, significant reductions in mean waiting room and exam room wait times (p = ...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.