Are outpatient costs for hypertension and diabetes care affordable? Evidence from Western Kenya.

Background: Diabetes and hypertension pose a significant socio-economic burden in developing countries such as Kenya, where financial risk-protection mechanisms remain inadequate. This proves to be a great barrier towards achieving universal health care in such settings unless mechanisms are put in place to ensure greater access and affordability to non-communicable disease (NCD) management services.

Aim: This article aims to examine outpatient management services costs for patients with diabetes and hypertension attending public primary healthcare facilities.

Integrating digital solutions into national health data systems through public-private collaboration: An early experience of the SPICE platform in Kenya.

Public-private collaborative efforts to address healthcare challenges in low- and middle-income countries have been the focus of digital initiatives to improve both access and quality of health services. We report the early feasibility, experience, and learnings of migrating healthcare data generated from a proprietary, privately owned cloud-based environment into an on-premises National Health Data Center (NHDC) in compliance with Kenya's data management legislation. In 2018, Medtronic LABS entered into a partnership with the Kenya Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to improve access to quality services and data availability for non-communicable diseases (diabetes and hypertension), anchored on the SPICE digital health platform.

'Implementability' matters: using implementation research steps to guide and support non-communicable disease national planning in low-income and middle-income countries.

The 'implementation gap' between national plans and successful implementation is a central theme in addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It is a factor that has undermined Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, which aims to achieve a one-third reduction in premature mortality from four major NCDs by 2030.

Current knowledge and attitudes of psychiatric nurses toward electroconvulsive therapy.

Purpose: This study assessed the current knowledge and attitudes of psychiatric nurses toward electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

Design And Methods: A quantitative, nonexperimental study was conducted at a large psychiatric hospital in the United States. The Questionnaire on Attitudes and Knowledge (QuAKE) Scale was used to conduct the assessment among a convenient sample of 158 psychiatric nurses.