Co-Designing an eHealth Service for the Co-Care of Parkinson Disease: Explorative Study of Values and Challenges.

Background: The need for services to support patient self-care and patient education has been emphasized for patients with chronic conditions. People with chronic conditions may spend many hours per year in health and social care services, but the majority of time is spent in self-care. This has implications in how health care is best organized.

Staffs' and managers' perceptions of how and when discrete event simulation modelling can be used as a decision support in quality improvement: a focus group discussion study at two hospital settings in Sweden.

Objective: To explore healthcare staffs' and managers' perceptions of how and when discrete event simulation modelling can be used as a decision support in improvement efforts.

Design: Two focus group discussions were performed.

Setting: Two settings were included: a rheumatology department and an orthopaedic section both situated in Sweden.

Persons with rheumatoid arthritis challenge the relevance of the health assessment questionnaire: a qualitative study of patient perception.

Background: The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index (HAQ) is widely used to measure functional ability in persons with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). The instrument was developed with limited involvement from persons with RA, and their perception of the instrument has not been studied in depth. The aim of this study was to explore how persons with RA experience the use of the HAQ in care.

Boosting Quality Registries with Clinical Decision Support Functionality*. User Acceptance of a Prototype Applied to HIV/TB Drug Therapy.

Background: The care of HIV-related tuberculosis (HIV/TB) is complex and challenging. Clinical decision support (CDS) systems can contribute to improve quality of care, but more knowledge is needed on factors determining user acceptance of CDS.

Objectives: To analyze physicians' and nurses' acceptance of a CDS prototype for evidence-based drug therapy recommendations for HIV/TB treatment.

Patients are doing it for themselves: A survey on disease-specific knowledge acquisition among people with Parkinson's disease in Sweden.

Effective self-management is key to living well with Parkinson's disease and one important aspect is disease-specific knowledge. This article explores how people with Parkinson's disease in Sweden (1) acquire disease-specific knowledge and (2) use Parkinson's disease-related healthcare. Data were collected through an online survey, which had 346 respondents (16-87 years old, median age: 68 years, 51% male; time since diagnosis: 0-31 years, median time: 7 years).

Operational strategies to manage non-elective orthopaedic surgical flows: a simulation modelling study.

Objectives: To explore the value of simulation modelling in evaluating the effects of strategies to plan and schedule operating room (OR) resources aimed at reducing time to surgery for non-elective orthopaedic inpatients at a Swedish hospital.

Methods: We applied discrete-event simulation modelling. The model was populated with real world data from a university hospital with a strong focus on reducing waiting time to surgery for patients with hip fracture.

Value-Based Health Care for Chronic Care: Aligning Outcomes Measurement with the Patient Perspective.

Background: Value-based health care is increasingly used for developing health care services by relating patient outcomes to costs. A hierarchical value scorecard for creating outcome measurements has been suggested: the 3-tier model. The objective of this study was to test the model against the patient's view of value in a chronic care setting.

Using patient-reported outcomes in routine practice: three novel use cases and implications.

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) can show how patients perceive their illness burden over time. Active use of PROs by clinicians at the point of service can help illuminate the patients' longitudinal changes in outcomes, thereby advancing shared decision making, patient engagement, and self-care. This article offers principles and lessons learned from using PROs and provides 3 case studies to demonstrate how to overcome the challenges in using PROs in routine clinical practice to improve outcomes.

Nurses' perceptions of multitasking in the emergency department: effective, fun and unproblematic (at least for me) – a qualitative study.

Introduction: The aim was to understand how multitasking is experienced by registered nurses and how it relates to their everyday practice in the emergency department.

Method: Interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with registered nurses (n = 9) working in one of two included emergency departments in Sweden. Data were analyzed using Schilling's structured model for qualitative content analysis.

Continuous innovation: developing and using a clinical database with new technology for patient-centred care--the case of the Swedish quality register for arthritis.

Objective: We describe and explain the development of a clinical quality database and its use for different clinical, management and patient empowerment purposes.

Design: A longitudinal case study covering 1993-2009.

Setting: Rheumatology departments in Swedish hospitals.

The medium is the (health) measure: patient engagement using personal technologies.

With the phrase "the medium is the message", Marshall McLuhan argued that technologies are the messages themselves and not just the medium. Almost 50 years later, we understand that modern information and communication technologies expand our ability to perceive our world to an extent that would be impossible without the medium. In this article, we contend that information and communication technologies are becoming the dominant medium for patient engagement.

Team behaviors in emergency care: a qualitative study using behavior analysis of what makes team work.

Objective: Teamwork has been suggested as a promising approach to improving care processes in emergency departments (ED). However, for teamwork to yield expected results, implementation must involve behavior changes. The aim of this study is to use behavior analysis to qualitatively examine how teamwork plays out in practice and to understand eventual discrepancies between planned and actual behaviors.

Managing health care decisions and improvement through simulation modeling.

Simulation modeling is a way to test changes in a computerized environment to give ideas for improvements before implementation. This article reviews research literature on simulation modeling as support for health care decision making. The aim is to investigate the experience and potential value of such decision support and quality of articles retrieved.