Infrastructure Availability for the Care of Congenital Heart Disease Patients and Its Influence on Case Volume, Complexity and Access Among Healthcare Institutions in 17 Middle-Income Countries.

The care for patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) is multi-disciplinary and resource intensive. There is limited information about the infrastructure available among programs that care for CHD patients in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). A survey covering the entire care-pathway for CHD, from initial assessment to inpatient care and outpatient follow-up, was administered to institutions participating in the International Quality Improvement Collaborative for Congenital Heart Disease (IQIC).

Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of LifeCourse on Utilization and Patient and Caregiver Quality of Life and Experience.

Whole-person care is a new paradigm for serious illness, but few programs have been robustly studied. We sought to test the effect of LifeCourse (LC), a person-centered program for patients living with serious illness, on health-care utilization, care experience, and quality of life, employing a quasi-experimental design with a Usual Care (UC) comparison group. The study was conducted 2012 to 2017 at an upper-Midwest not-for-profit health-care system with outcomes measured every 3 months until the end of life.

Rationale for routine collection of patient reported outcomes during integrative medicine consultation visits.

Objectives: Integrative medicine (IM) is whole-person care utilizing complementary health approaches to address numerous physical or emotional influences that can impact an individual's health. Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) are subjective measures that quantify patients' perception of their quality of life. While PRO measures have been routinely assessed in specific oncology clinics, our objective was to assess the ability and utility of routine collection of PRO measures in an IM clinic.

Testing and Refining Measures of Secondhand Smoke Exposure Among Smokers and Nonsmokers.

Introduction: Over the past few decades, tobacco control efforts have made great strides in making smoke-free air the norm; 30 states in the United States have implemented 100% smoke-free laws. Despite this progress, the evolution of the measurement of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure has lagged.

Methods: Cognitive testing was used to explore the functioning and limitations of current SHS surveillance items; many items are frequently used for statewide or national surveillance.

Price-Minimizing Behaviors in a Cohort of Smokers before and after a Cigarette Tax Increase.

Cigarette tax increases result in a reduced demand for cigarettes and increased efforts by smokers to reduce their cost of smoking. Less is known about how smokers think about their expenditures for cigarettes and the possible mechanisms that underlie price-minimizing behaviors. In-depth longitudinal interviews were conducted with Minnesota smokers to explore the factors that influence smokers' decisions one month prior to a $1.