Background: In 2022, England embarked on an ambitious and innovative re-organisation to produce an integrated health and care system with a greater focus on improving population health. This study aimed to understand how nascent ICSs are developing and to identify the key challenges and enablers to integration.
Methods: Four ICSs participated in the study between November 2021 and May 2022.
Patient safety incident reports are a key source of safety intelligence. This study aimed to explore whether information contained in such reports can elicit facilitators of safety, including responding, anticipating, monitoring, learning, and other mechanisms by which safety is maintained. The review further explored whether, if found, this information could be used to inform safety interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Measures to evaluate high-risk medication safety during transfers of care should span different safety dimensions across all components of these transfers and reflect outcomes and opportunities for proactive safety management.
Objectives: To scope measures currently used to evaluate safety interventions targeting insulin, anticoagulants and other high-risk medications during transfers of care and evaluate their comprehensiveness as a portfolio.
Methods: Embase, Medline, Cochrane and CINAHL databases were searched using scoping methodology for studies evaluating the safety of insulin, anticoagulants and other high-risk medications during transfer of care.
Objectives: In 2022, England embarked on an ambitious reorganisation to produce an integrated health and care system, intended also to maximise population health. The newly created integrated care systems (ICSs) aim to improve quality of care, by achieving the best outcomes for individuals and populations through the provision of evidence-based services. An emerging approach for managing quality in organisations is the Quality Management System (QMS) framework.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Health Policy Manag
August 2023
The Special Measures and Challenged Provider (SMCP) Regime introduced for struggling healthcare organisations in England represents a subtle shift to the scope of external regulation from performance oversight to include supporting internal service improvement. External regulation alone has a had a mixed impact on the quality of care and Vindrola-Padros and colleagues' study highlights that externally driven improvement initiatives may also struggle to succeed in turning around performance. Principally, this is due to a failure in acknowledgment that poor performance results from a myriad of external and internal factors which coalesce to impede organisational performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Geriatr Psychiatry
August 2023
Background: Dementia Care Navigators (DCNs) are professionals without clinical training, who provide individualised emotional and practical support to people living with dementia, working alongside clinical services. Navigator services have been implemented but the service offered vary without a consistent overview provided. The aim of this narrative systematic review was to describe and compare existing service formats, and to synthesise evidence regarding their implementation and impacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Reductions in energy availability leading to weight loss can induce loss of bone and impact important endocrine regulators of bone integrity. We sought to elucidate whether endurance exercise (EX) can mitigate bone loss observed in sedentary (SED) skeletally mature rodents subjected to graded energy deficits.
Methods: Female virgin rats (n=84, 5-mo-old; 12/group) were randomized to baseline controls and either sedentary (SED) or exercise (EX) conditions, and within each exercise status to adlib-fed (ADLIB), or moderate (MOD) or severe (SEV) energy restriction diets for 12 weeks.
Purpose: Obesity is thought to negatively impact bone quality and strength despite improving bone mineral density. We hypothesized that 1) continuous consumption of a high-fat, high-sugar (HFS) diet would impair bone quality and strength, and 2) a change from an HFS diet to a low-fat, low-sugar (LFS) would reverse HFS-induced impairments to bone quality and strength.
Methods: Six-week-old male C57Bl/6 mice ( n = 10/group) with access to a running wheel were randomized to an LFS diet or an HFS diet with simulated sugar-sweetened beverages (20% fructose in place of regular drinking water) for 13 wk.
Objectives: This scoping review aimed to establish the approaches employed to improving patient safety in integrated care for community-dwelling adults with long-term conditions.
Design: Scoping review.
Setting: All care settings.
Objective: A new patient safety policy, 'Learning from Deaths' (LfD), was implemented in 2017 in National Health Service (NHS) organisations in England. This study examined how contextual factors influenced the implementation of LfD policy and the ability of the programme to achieve its goals.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key policymakers involved in the development of the policy, along with interviews with managers and senior clinicians in five NHS organisations responsible for implementing the policy at the local level.
Obesity is among the most prevalent of health conditions in humans leading to a multitude of metabolic pathologies such as type 2 diabetes and hyperglycemia. However, there are many wild animals that have large seasonal cycles of fat accumulation and loss that do not result in the health consequences observed in obese humans. One example is the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) that can have body fat content > 40% that is then used as the energy source for hibernation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients with acute venous thromboembolism (VTE) in the setting of transient provoking factors are typically treated with short-term anticoagulation. However, the risk of recurrence may be increased in the presence of enduring risk factors. In such patients, the optimal duration of treatment remains uncertain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Digital systems have long been used to improve the quality and safety of care when managing acute kidney injury (AKI). The availability of digitised clinical data can also turn organisations and their networks into learning healthcare systems (LHSs) if used across all levels of health and care. This review explores the impact of digital systems i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Health Serv Res Policy
October 2021
Objective: In recent years there has been a proliferation of patient safety policies in the United Kingdom triggered by well publicized failures in health care. The Learning from Deaths (LfD) policy was implemented in response to failures at Southern Health National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust. This study aims to develop a narrative to enable the understanding of the key drivers involved in its evolution and implications for future national patient safety policy development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Safety is a key concern in older adult care homes. However, it is a less developed concept in older adult care homes than in healthcare settings. As part of study of the collection and application of safety data in the care home sector in England, a scoping review of the international literature was conducted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe impact of the spaceflight environment on endogenous estrogen production in female crewmembers and the resulting impact on other adaptations, like bone loss, is an under-investigated topic. Hence, we investigated the interaction of exogenous 17- estradiol (E2) treatment and disuse to test the hypothesis that E2 treatment would mitigate disuse-induced bone loss. There were 40 virgin female Sprague-Dawley rats (5 mo old) randomized to placebo (PL; 0 ppm E2) or estrogen (E2; 10 ppm E2) treatments, delivered via custom-made rodent diets; half of each group was randomized to either weightbearing (WB) or hindlimb unloading (HU) for 39 d.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The mechanisms of acute ankle syndesmosis ligament injuries in professional rugby union are not well understood.
Aim: To describe the mechanisms of acute ankle syndesmosis ligament injuries in male professional rugby union players using systematic visual video analysis.
Methods: All time-loss acute ankle syndesmosis ligament injuries identified via retrospective analysis of the Leinster Rugby injury surveillance database across the 2013/2014 to 2017/2018 seasons were considered as potentially eligible for inclusion.
Background: Failure to recognise and respond to patient deterioration on hospital wards is a common cause of healthcare-related harm. If patients are not rescued and suffer a cardiac arrest as a result then only around 15% will survive. Track and Trigger systems have been introduced into the NHS to improve both identification and response to such patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) leads to lack of bone accrual, bone loss, and increased fractures. Presently there is no cure, and many IBD treatments incur negative side effects. We previously discovered treatment with exogenous irisin resolved inflammatory changes in the colon, gut lymphatics, and bone in a mild IBD rodent model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMuscle disuse impairs muscle quality and is associated with increased mortality. Little is known regarding additive effects of multiple bouts of disuse, which is a common occurrence in patients experiencing multiple surgeries. Mitochondrial quality is vital to muscle health and quality; however, to date mitochondrial quality control has not been investigated following multiple bouts of disuse.
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