A woman's experience of tapering from buprenorphine during pregnancy.

Although opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) is the treatment of choice for pregnant opioid-dependent patients, some professionals argue that tapering the medication dose will reduce the severity of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). This case description is based on the patient's detailed blog, and medical records from her general practitioner and the hospital. The patient is an employed, 32-year-old drug-abstinent woman in OMT.

Improving the interface between primary and secondary care: a statement from the European Working Party on Quality in Family Practice (EQuiP).

A group from the European Working Party on Quality in Family Practice (EQuiP), working with over 20 European colleges of primary care, has assessed what, in their view, is needed to improve the quality of care at the interface between general practice and specialists. Experiences and ideas from a wide range of people were gathered through focused group discussions. From these it was clear that, for real improvement at the interface of care, changes are needed in the system of care and in the ways that doctors view their roles and their performance.

[Quality of general practice as experienced by patients].

Background: The aim of the study was to explore the impact of feedback to general practitioners regarding patient evaluation of the quality of services rendered.

Material And Methods: 1,614 patients in 41 general practices assessed the quality of care they had received during the last 12 months. The results for each practice were compared to the mean quality level of all the practices, and returned to the practice.

[Practice patterns, physicians' characteristics and patient-evaluated quality of general practice in Norway].

Background: Norwegian general practice is a conglomerate of organisational forms. Studies of quality differences between types of practice have not been published. There is scant knowledge of how physician characteristics may influence patients' experience of the quality of care.