Quality of life of patients with rheumatic diseases.

Objective: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is an important indicator of population health and can measure the impact of medical actions. The main objective of this study was to determine the HRQoL of patients with rheumatic diseases (RD) and compare it with that of the general population.

Methods: Observational, cross-sectional, single-center study, with consecutive inclusion of outpatients over 18 years of age seen at a Rheumatology hospital-based outpatient clinic in Madrid.

Cost/efficacy analysis of preferred Spanish AIDS study group regimens and the dual therapy with lopinavir/ritonavir plus lamivudine for initial ART in HIV infected adults.

Introduction: The National AIDS Plan and the Spanish AIDS study group (GESIDA) proposes "preferred regimens" (PR) of antiretroviral treatment (ART) as initial therapy in HIV-infected patients. In 2013, the recommended regimens were all triple therapy regimens. The Gardel Study assessed the efficacy of a dual therapy (DT) combination of lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) plus lamivudine (3TC).

Delphi consensus statement: Quality Indicators for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Comprehensive Care Units.

Background And Aims: While it is commonly accepted that Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) Comprehensive Care Units (ICCUs) facilitate the delivery of quality care to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients, it remains unclear how an ICCU should be defined or evaluated. The aim of the present study was to develop a comprehensive set of Quality Indicators (QIs) of structure, process, and outcomes for defining and evaluating an ICCU.

Methods: A Delphi consensus-based approach with a standardized three-step process was used to identify a core set of QIs.

Quality of care standards for nursing clinics in rheumatology.

Background: Nursing clinics in rheumatology (NCR) are organizational models in the field of nursing care. There are various NCR models, but there is no consensus on its operational definition. Our objective is to develop quality standards to define and characterize a NCR.

Rheumatology in the community of Madrid: current availability of rheumatologists and future needs using a predictive model.

Objectives: To: 1) describe the distribution of the public sector rheumatologists; 2) identify variables on which the workload in Rheumatology depends; and 3) build a predictive model on the need of rheumatologists for the next 10 years, in the Community of Madrid (CM).

Methodology: The information was obtained through structured questionnaires sent to all services/units of Rheumatology of public hospitals in the CM. The population figures, current and forecasted, were obtained from the National Statistics Institute.

[Objective KONTROL study: therapeutic inertia in hypertensive patients attended in primary care of Spain].

Objectives: To determine the level of therapeutic inertia (TI), and the factors associated to the patient, doctor and the health organisation, in hypertensive patients treated in Primary Care (PC).

Design: Cross-sectional, multicentre study.

Setting: A sample of PC Teams from all over Spain.

Health economics and RSV.

An economic analysis was performed in Spain to evaluate the efficiency (cost-effectiveness) of palivizumab in preventing severe RSV infection in premature infants with GA 32-35 and two or more risk factors (RF). The design was a decision tree model using data from the scientific literature and the FLIP I and FLIP II studies IRIS Study Group. The main effectiveness measure was quality-adjusted life years (QALY) gained from both the National Health System (NHS) and societal perspectives.

[Integration and boundaries between health and social care. 2008 SESPAS Report].

We examine the opportunities to establish integrated services in Spain. The new law on services for disabled people approved by the Spanish Parliament in December 2006 and the Mental Health Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Health are used to illustrate policies that will require a high degree of integration among organizational, financial and clinical levels. In this context, some of the following questions arise: what do we know about the effectiveness of the integration of health and social services? Who should be the targets of integration and what are the structures needed for patient-centered services? Who should be responsible for and manage these services? An outline of Leutz's five criteria for integration is reviewed and the results from international experiences are discussed.

[Variations among Spanish regions in the use of three cardiovascular technologies].

Introduction And Objectives: There is evidence that some geographic variations in the use of medical technologies are not explained by differences in disease burden. The objectives of this study were to quantify variability in the use of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in Spanish autonomous regions and to try to explain the variability found for the first two technologies.

Methods: Linear regression models were developed in which the number of procedures performed per million population (pmp) in 2003 in each autonomous region was the dependent variable.