Paramedic prescribing

BACKGROUND: The care organization of persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) varies by country according to the health care system. This study used a large sample of French individuals with severe PIMD/polyhandicap to assess: 1) the adequacy of care setting over a 5-year period and 2) health care consumption. METHODS: The longitudinal study used data from the French EVALuation PoLyHandicap (EVAL-PLH) cohort of persons with severe PIMD/polyhandicap who were receiving managed in specialized care centres and residential facilities...

BACKGROUND: Infants can present in the first year of life with excessive, recurrent crying without an apparent illness or failure to thrive. The excessive crying results in a wide variety of problems for infants, parents and health care service. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed at evaluating how often parents of children with excessive crying seek help in the medical and paramedical health care system and which therapies are prescribed. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study uses data collected within KUNO Kids health study...

BACKGROUND: Bangladesh outperforms its Least Developed Country (LDC) status on a range of health measures including life expectancy. Its frontline medical practitioners, however, are not formally trained medical professionals, but instead lightly-trained 'village doctors' able to prescribe modern pharmaceuticals. This current study represents the most complete national survey of these practitioners and their informal 'clinics'. METHODS: The study is based on a national Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) of 1,000 informal practitioners...

BACKGROUND: Paramedic prescribing has been permitted in legislation from 2018. In 2019 one of the first cohorts of paramedic prescribers in the country was invited to share their experiences, thoughts and perceptions around the new and evolving role of paramedic prescribing practice. AIM: To explore the opinions of student and newly qualified paramedic prescribers regarding the impact and effectiveness of paramedic independent prescribing on their clinical practice...

BACKGROUND: With the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an increase and scaling up of provider-to-provider telemedicine programs that connect frontline health providers such as nurses and community health workers at primary care clinics with remote doctors at tertiary facilities to facilitate consultations for rural patients. Considering this new trend of increasing use of telemedicine, this study was conducted to generate evidence for patients, health providers, and policymakers to compare if provider-to-provider telemedicine-based care is equivalent to in-person care and is safe and acceptable in terms of diagnostic and treatment standards...

OBJECTIVES: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an infection of the liver that can lead to significant liver damage and hepatocellular carcinoma. Individuals born between 1945 and 1965 and individuals with intravenous drug use represent the largest HCV demographics and often experience barriers to treatment. In this case series, we discuss a novel partnership between community paramedics (CPs), HCV care coordinators, and an infectious disease physician to provide HCV treatment to individuals with barriers accessing care...

OBJECTIVES: This research aimed to fill a current knowledge gap, namely the current scope of clinical role of paramedics in primary care, in relation to specific constructs such a level of education and clinical experience. SETTING: The survey was distributed to paramedics in primary care across the UK through the College of Paramedics. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 341 surveys were returned (male=215). 90% of responses were from paramedics in England, 1...

INTRODUCTION: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia and is a significant risk factor for stroke. Prescription of oral anticoagulant (OAC) medication reduces the risk of AF-related stroke by 64% - yet over 400,000 people in England have undiagnosed (and therefore untreated) AF.Emergency medical services (EMS) encounter a wide range of patients, some of whom may not engage with other healthcare services. AF may be detected by EMS in connection with the cause of the call, or as an incidental finding...

Background: Type 2 Diabetes-related medication errors are frequently reported from the hospitals and consequently are of major concern. However, such reports are insufficient when developing healthcare settings are pursued in literature. Keeping this inadequacy in mind, we therefore aimed to explore physicians' perceptions, experiences and expectations of medication errors when managing patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Methods: A qualitative design was adopted...

The use of pre-hospital blood transfusion by air ambulance crews is increasing. Blood transfusion is traditionally 'authorised' by doctors, not prescribed. However, there is an increasing interest in extending the capability of authorisation to other practitioners - that is, non-medical authorisation (NMA). A UK framework for nurses and midwives has existed since 2007, but training for critical care paramedics (CCPs) has been limited. The Resuscitation with Pre-Hospital Blood Products (RePHILL) trial was launched in 2016, requiring pre-hospital administration of red cells and LyoPlas...

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BACKGROUND: In the strained actual economic context, all clinical pharmacy activities cannot be achieved for all patients of all care pathways. So finding a way to prioritize moments and patients needing those activities is essential. This is the challenge of the "5P project" (Patient personalized clinical pharmacy program integrated into care pathway). OBJECTIVE: To present adverse event (AE) risk management approach applied to develop clinical pharmacy programs integrated into care pathway, using two methods...

Background: Paramedics working in advanced practice roles in the UK can now train to prescribe medicine. This is anticipated to benefit patient access to medicines and quality of care where there is a national shortage of doctors, particularly in primary care. Aim: To explore the experience of paramedics who are early adopters of independent prescribing in a range of healthcare settings in the UK. Design and setting: A qualitative study involving interviews between May and August 2019, with paramedics in the UK who had completed a prescribing programme...

BACKGROUND: Due to lack of neurologists in low- and middle-income countries, communities of patients living with epilepsy are calling for task-shifting of diagnosis and management from physicians to paramedical providers in the primary health care systems to narrow the huge treatment gap. Evidence to guide this work has been limited. This study assesses the competence of village clinicians (VC)- mostly paramedical providers- in the diagnosis and management of a presumptive case of childhood epilepsy and its determinants...

Obstetric ultrasound performed according to standards from its prescription to the report is a guarantee of quality. The aim of our study was to take stock of obstetrical ultrasounds in order to make rational the ultrasound follow-ups of pregnancy. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection through the reports of obstetrical ultrasounds performed from the 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2018. Of the 13,487 ultrasounds in the study period, 2,355 were obstetric ultrasounds, constituting 1746% of the ultrasound activity...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the justification of medical irradiation related to CT scans performed in children in Lome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Descriptive cross-sectional study of CT scans performed from 1 September to 30 November 2019 in children aged 0 to 18 years. The analysis of the justification was made particularly on the formulation of the clinical indication, the consistency of the clinical indication with the requested CT and the conformity of the clinical indication with the Good Practice Guide (GPG) medical imaging examinations of the French Society of Radiology (SFR) and French Nuclear Medicine Society (SFMN)...

Pediatric emergency care is prone to medication errors in many aspects including prescriptions, administrations, and monitoring. This study was designed to assess the effects of computer-assisted calculation on reducing error rates and time to prescription of specific emergency drugs. We conducted a randomized crossover experimental study involving emergency medicine residents and paramedics in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital. Participants calculated and prescribed medications using both the conventional method and a computer-assisted method...

Background: Overuse of antibiotics and inappropriate prescribing has resulted in a rapid increase in the rate of antibiotic resistance, with poorer patient outcomes and increased health costs. In the out-of-hours setting, a high proportion of antibiotics are prescribed and practices need to improve to reduce antibiotic resistance. Purpose: To identify antibiotic prescribing practices in European out-of-hours primary care services that are contributing to antibiotic resistance...

BACKGROUND: The need to conserve antibiotic efficacy, through the management of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) without recourse to antibiotics, is a global priority. A key target for interventions is the antibiotic prescribing behaviour of healthcare professionals including non-medical prescribers (NMPs: nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, physiotherapists) who manage these infections. OBJECTIVES: To identify what evidence exists regarding the influences on NMPs' antimicrobial prescribing behaviour and analyse the operationalization of the identified drivers of behaviour using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF)...

Effective and safe pain relief in neonates matters. This is not only because of ethical constraints or human empathy, but even more because pain treatment is an important and crucial part of contemporary medical, paramedical, and nursing care to improve the outcome in neonatal intensive care graduates. Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is likely one of the pharmacological tools to attain this, with data on prescription practices suggesting that paracetamol is somehow the "rising star" in neonatal pain management...