Defining a core set of research and development priorities for virtual care in the post-pandemic environment: a call to action.

Objectives: To identify research and development priorities for virtual care following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic from the perspective of key stakeholders (patients, clinicians, informaticians and academics).

Design: Qualitative study using a modified nominal group technique.

Setting: Online semi-structured interviews and workshops held in November 2022 and February 2023.

Barriers, facilitators and next steps for sustaining and scaling virtual hospital services in Australia: a qualitative descriptive study.

Objective: To describe the barriers to and facilitators of implementing and delivering virtual hospital (VH) services, and evidence and practice gaps where further research and policy changes are needed to drive continuous improvement.

Study Design: Qualitative descriptive study.

Setting, Participants: Online semi-structured interviews and a focus group were conducted between July 2022 and April 2023 with doctors, nurses and leadership staff involved in VH services at three sites in New South Wales, Australia.

How primary and tertiary care services collaborate in urgent care delivery: an evaluation of general practice advice lines.

Background: To address the rising demand for urgent care and decrease hospital use, health systems are implementing different strategies to support urgent care patients (i.e. patients who would have typically been treated in hospital) in the community, such as general practitioner (GP) advice lines.

Prescription drug monitoring program in Australia: a qualitative study of stakeholders' experiences and perceptions of a state-wide implementation.

Background: Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) are increasingly implemented across the globe with aims of managing and mitigating risks relating to high-risk prescription medicines. There is limited research focused on identifying strategies or processes for large-scale PDMP implementation. This study aimed to identify strategies perceived as necessary for successful state-wide implementation of a PDMP by exploring the experiences and perceptions of stakeholders responsible for the implementation in New South Wales (NSW), Australia: to identify (1) the drivers of implementation; (2) perceived strategies that worked well; (3) barriers to implementation; and (4) the elements needed for long-term success of SafeScript NSW.

Using for medication continuity during transition of care: An observational study.

National Personal Health Records (PHRs) have been proposed to improve the transfer of medication-related information during transition of care. To evaluate the concordance between the medications captured in the Australian national PHR, My Health Record (MyHR), and the pharmacist obtained best possible medication history (BPMH) for patients upon hospital admission. This prospective observational study used a convenience sample of hospital patients.

Use of digital patient decision-support tools for atrial fibrillation treatments: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objectives: To assess the effects of digital patient decision-support tools for atrial fibrillation (AF) treatment decisions in adults with AF.

Study Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Eligibility Criteria: Eligible randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluated digital patient decision-support tools for AF treatment decisions in adults with AF.

Development of a palliative paramedicine framework to standardise best practice: A Delphi study.

Background: Growing global demand for palliative care services has prompted generalist clinicians to provide adjunct support to specialist teams. Paramedics are uniquely placed to respond to these patients in the community. However, embedding palliative care principles into their core business will require multifactorial interventions at structural, healthcare service and individual clinician and consumer levels.

Prescription drug monitoring programs evaluation: A systematic review of reviews.

Background: Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are used to mitigate harms from high-risk medicines including misuse, prescription shopping, overdoses, and death. Previous systematic reviews report inconsistent findings. We undertook a systematic review of reviews to 1) describe and identify the methods and outcome measures used to evaluate PDMPs, 2) summarise existing evidence on outcomes and factors that influence PDMP success or benefit realisation.

An Exploratory Study of Allied Health Students' Experiences of Electronic Medical Records During Placements.

Background: Allowing students to access and document in electronic medical records (eMRs) during clinical placements is viewed as critical for ensuring that graduates have a high level of digital proficiency prior to entering the workforce. Limited studies have explored student access to eMRs in health disciplines outside of medicine and nursing.

Objective: Our main objective was to examine allied health students' experiences and perceptions of the opportunity to develop eMR competencies during their placement, across a range of allied health disciplines and placement settings.

Methodology for the Development of the Australian National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework.

Internationally healthcare organisations and governments are grappling with the issue of upskilling healthcare workforces in relation to digital health. Significant research has been undertaken in relation to documenting essential digital health capability requirements for the workforce. In 2019 the Australian Digital Health Agency funded work by the Australasian Institute of Digital Health to develop a National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capability Framework.

Role of digital technology in delivering 'healthy futures' and 'healthy cities'.

Digital health technologies and services play a critical role in the delivery of safe and efficient healthcare and better health outcomes. Interoperability of these technologies and services, as well as digital inclusion for communities are important enablers of a modern, connected health system. The ongoing development of these factors is an aspiration of Australia's National Digital Health Strategy (NDHS).

The General Practice and Residential Aged Care Facility Concordance of Medication (GRACEMED) study.

Background: The lack of interoperable IT systems between residential aged care facilities (RACF) and general practitioners (GP) in primary care settings in Australia introduces the potential for medication discrepancies and other medication errors. The aim of the GRACEMED study is to determine the extent and potential severity of medication discrepancies between general practice and RACFs, and identify factors associated with medication discrepancies.

Methods: A cross sectional study of medication discrepancies between RACF medication orders and GP medication lists was conducted in the Sydney North Health Network, Australia.

Health and social care-associated harm amongst vulnerable children in primary care: mixed methods analysis of national safety reports.

Purpose: Patient safety failures are recognised as a global threat to public health, yet remain a leading cause of death internationally. Vulnerable children are inversely more in need of high-quality primary health and social-care but little is known about the quality of care received. Using national patient safety data, this study aimed to characterise primary care-related safety incidents among vulnerable children.

Do user preferences align with human factors assessment scores of drug-drug interaction alerts?

This study aimed to assess drug-drug interaction alert interfaces and to examine the relationship between compliance with human factors principles and user-preferences of alerts. Three reviewers independently evaluated drug-drug interaction alert interfaces in seven electronic systems using the Instrument-for-Evaluating-Human-Factors-Principles-in-Medication-Related-Decision-Support-Alerts (I-MeDeSA). Fifty-three doctors and pharmacists completed a survey to rate the alert interfaces from best to worst and reported on liked and disliked features.

Attitudes of health professionals to using routinely collected clinical data for performance feedback and personalised professional development.

Objectives: To learn the attitudes of health professionals, health informaticians and information communication technology professionals to using data in electronic health records (eHRs) for performance feedback and professional development.

Design: Qualitative research in a co-design framework. Health professionals' perceptions of the accessibility of data in eHRs, and barriers to and enablers of using these data in performance feedback and professional development were explored in co-design workshops.

Automated classification of primary care patient safety incident report content and severity using supervised machine learning (ML) approaches.

Learning from patient safety incident reports is a vital part of improving healthcare. However, the volume of reports and their largely free-text nature poses a major analytic challenge. The objective of this study was to test the capability of autonomous classifying of free text within patient safety incident reports to determine incident type and the severity of harm outcome.

Delivering safe and effective test-result communication, management and follow-up: a mixed-methods study protocol.

Introduction: The failure to follow-up pathology and medical imaging test results poses patient-safety risks which threaten the effectiveness, quality and safety of patient care. The objective of this project is to: (1) improve the effectiveness and safety of test-result management through the establishment of clear governance processes of communication, responsibility and accountability; (2) harness health information technology (IT) to inform and monitor test-result management; (3) enhance the contribution of consumers to the establishment of safe and effective test-result management systems.

Methods And Analysis: This convergent mixed-methods project triangulates three multistage studies at seven adult hospitals and one paediatric hospital in Australia.

The effects of hearing loss on person-centred care in residential aged care: a narrative review.

Person-centred care is achieved through strategies such as effective communication and shared decision-making. Hearing loss can lead to communication breakdown and social isolation in residential aged care. The review aimed to address how hearing loss affects person-centred care in residential aged care settings.

Sources of unsafe primary care for older adults: a mixed-methods analysis of patient safety incident reports.

Background: older adults are frequent users of primary healthcare services, but are at increased risk of healthcare-related harm in this setting.

Objectives: to describe the factors associated with actual or potential harm to patients aged 65 years and older, treated in primary care, to identify action to produce safer care.

Design And Setting: a cross-sectional mixed-methods analysis of a national (England and Wales) database of patient safety incident reports from 2005 to 2013.

Patient safety incidents are common in primary care: A national prospective active incident reporting survey.

Background: The study objectives were to describe the incidence and the nature of patient safety incidents (PSIs) in primary care general practice settings, and to explore the association between these incidents and practice or organizational characteristics.

Methods: GPs, randomly selected from a national influenza surveillance network (n = 800) across France, prospectively reported any incidents observed each day over a one-week period between May and July 2013. An incident was an event or circumstance that could have resulted, or did result, in harm to a patient, which the GP would not wish to recur.

Patient Safety Incidents Involving Sick Children in Primary Care in England and Wales: A Mixed Methods Analysis.

Background: The UK performs poorly relative to other economically developed countries on numerous indicators of care quality for children. The contribution of iatrogenic harm to these outcomes is unclear. As primary care is the first point of healthcare contact for most children, we sought to investigate the safety of care provided to children in this setting.

Changes in the profile of Australians in 77 residential aged care facilities across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Objective Government expenditure on and the number of aged care facilities in Australia have increased consistently since 1995. As a result, a range of aged care policy changes have been implemented. Data on demographics and utilisation are important in determining the effects of policy on residential aged care services.