Utilization of EHR to Improve Support Person Engagement in Health Care for Patients With Chronic Conditions.

Innovations in electronic health record (EHR) systems invite new patient and family engagement methods and create opportunities to reduce healthcare disparities. However, many patients and their identified support persons (ie, proxies) are unsure how to interface with the technology. This phenomenological qualitative study served as a pilot study to investigate the patient, proxy, and provider lived experiences utilizing patient-facing EHR portals.

Family-Centered Primary Care for Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment.

Cognitive impairment (e.g. dementia) presents challenges for individuals, their families, and healthcare professionals alike.

Framing the front door: co-creating a home health care assessment of service need for children with disabilities.

This paper details the co-creation of a home health assessment tool for children with disabilities in the context of state-level systems change from traditional Medicaid to Medicaid managed care. A community based, sequential, mixed methods design was used to co-develop the assessment. A process evaluation highlighted community members' experiences with Medicaid managed care.

Index cholecystectomy in a rural hospital: it can be done.

Background: Index cholecystectomy (IC) refers to an operation during a patient's first hospital admission with symptomatic gallstone (GS) disease. There are proven reductions in cost, hospital bed days and GS-related complications while awaiting elective surgery. IC has not been universally adopted, particularly in smaller centres where logistics can present a barrier.

Timely cholecystectomy for acute gallstone disease: an ongoing challenge in a New Zealand provincial centre.

Aims: To review the prior management of patients who underwent cholecystectomy for gallstone disease at a provincial centre over a 1-year period, with a particular focus on potentially preventable morbidity by performing index cholecystectomy (IC).

Methods: Retrospective case note review was performed for patients who underwent cholecystectomy at Hawke's Bay's hospitals between 1 March 2009 and 1 March 2010.

Results: 148 cholecystectomies were performed over the study period.

Substance abuse prevention in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

In this article we review three categories of American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) substance abuse prevention programs: (1) published empirical trials; (2) promising programs published and unpublished that are in the process of development and that have the potential for empirical trials; and (3) examples of innovative grassroots programs that originate at the local level and may have promise for further development. AIAN communities are taking more and more independent control of substance abuse prevention. We point out that European American prevention scientists are largely unaware of the numerous grassroots prevention work going on in AIAN communities and urge a paradigm shift from adapting European American prevention science "best practices" to creating cultural "best practices" by working from inside AIAN communities.