Cameras and community health.

Photography projects are an alternative teaching method that can be easily integrated into community programs with adolescents and children. This article provides a brief review of the use of photography in documenting social and health issues. Two examples of community photography projects with easily ignored populations are described.

Faculty-agency partnering for improved client outcomes.

Implications for practice and education include recognition of the value of clinical outcome studies to clinicians and administrators in clinical agencies, as well as to nursing education. This project provides an example of the opportunity for mutually beneficial education and practice partnerships. Faculty, staff, and students demonstrated their ability to use the basic model for outcome studies developed by the United Way of America (1996).

Barriers to successful implementation of a clinical pathway for CHF.

Clinical pathways represent a strategy for responding to the current healthcare environment with a focus on managing care, reducing costs, increasing patient satisfaction, and improving quality. However, many healthcare organizations have found that implementing clinical pathways is not entirely successful even when they are based on sound evidence. The purpose of this case study was to describe and explain factors related to the success or failure of implementing a clinical pathway for congestive heart failure (CHF) patients in a 300-bed community hospital.

Assessing clinical pathways use in a community hospital: it depends on what "use" means.

Background: Many benefits have been associated with the use of clinical pathways, yet developing them can be costly, and implementing them is not always successful. A 300-bed Midwestern community hospital began a clinical pathways program in 1995, and by fall 1998, 15 pathways were in various stages of implementation, with 3 under development. Many challenges had been encountered, but hospital leaders were eager to find ways to increase pathway use.

Qualitative research: what does it have to offer to the gerontologist?

The growing challenges of promoting health and managing illness in an ever-changing health care system require an arsenal of research approaches. Qualitative methods have a long tradition in disciplines such as sociology and anthropology and are being used with greater frequency as interdisciplinary health-related disciplines attempt to understand and explain complex problems. The purpose of this article is to define and describe the main features of qualitative research and to examine ways in which this methodology is relevant and useful in gerontological studies.