Disease management in the treatment of patients with chronic heart failure who have universal access to health care: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: The efficacy of disease management programs in improving the outcome of heart failure patients remains uncertain and may vary across health systems. This study explores whether a countrywide disease management program is superior to usual care in reducing adverse health outcomes and improving well-being among community-dwelling adult patients with moderate-to-severe chronic heart failure who have universal access to advanced health-care services and technologies.

Methods: In this multicenter open-label trial, 1,360 patients recruited after hospitalization for heart failure exacerbation (38%) or from the community (62%) were randomly assigned to either disease management or usual care.

How Do Primary Care Physicians Perceive the Role of Nurses in Quality Measurement and Improvement? The Israeli Story.

Background: Israel has boasted a highly effective national quality monitoring program for community-based health services since 2004. The program involves ongoing monitoring of the quality of selected services provided by Israeli health plans and includes approximately 70 indicators.

Objective: To analyze Israeli primary care physicians' (PCPs) perceptions of nurses' roles in the national quality monitoring program and their contribution to improving health-care quality.

[Redesign of community-based health services: the solution for decreasing the quality gap].

The quality gap is defined as the gap between the observed and the expected, evidence-based, quality indicators. Experts agree that significant reduction of the quality gap requires transformation of the current system of health care provision. Maccabi Healthcare Services has formulated a "change package" in order to redesign its community-based healthcare services.

Pain in infants who are younger than 2 months during suprapubic aspiration and transurethral bladder catheterization: a randomized, controlled study.

Objective: Proper diagnosis of urinary tract infections depends on obtaining an uncontaminated urine sample for culture. Suprapubic aspiration and transurethral catheterization are the 2 recommended procedures for obtaining specimens for urine culture from young infants. The objective of the current study was to compare the pain that is experienced during these 2 procedures when performed in young infants.