Implementation of Care Management: An Analysis of Recent AHRQ Research.

Care management (CM) is a promising team-based, patient-centered approach "designed to assist patients and their support systems in managing medical conditions more effectively." As little is known about its implementation, this article describes CM implementation and associated lessons from 12 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-sponsored projects. Two rounds of data collection resulted in project-specific narratives that were analyzed using an iterative approach analogous to framework analysis.

Has the rescheduling of hydrocodone changed ED prescribing practices?

Objective: The objective was to examine the effect of hydrocodone-containing product (HCP) rescheduling on the proportion of prescriptions for HCPs given to patients discharged from the emergency department (ED).

Methods: Electronic queries of ED records were used to identify patients aged 15 years and older discharged with a pain-related prescription in the 12 months before and after HCP rescheduling. Prescriptions were classified as HCPs; other Schedule II medications (eg, oxycodone products); other Schedule III medications (eg, codeine products); and non-Schedule II/III products (eg, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).

Connecting the dots and merging meaning: using mixed methods to study primary care delivery transformation.

Objective: To demonstrate the value of mixed methods in the study of practice transformation and illustrate procedures for connecting methods and for merging findings to enhance the meaning derived.

Data Source/study Setting: An integrated network of university-owned, primary care practices at the University of Utah (Community Clinics or CCs). CC has adopted Care by Design, its version of the Patient Centered Medical Home.

Species difference in adaptive use of public information in sticklebacks.

Animals foraging on variable food sources can refine their estimates of patch quality by monitoring the success of others (i.e. collect 'public information').

Rethinking adaptation: the niche-construction perspective.

Niche construction refers to the capacity of organisms to construct, modify, and select important components of their local environments, such as nests, burrows, pupal cases, chemicals, and nutrients. A small but increasing number of evolutionary biologists regard niche construction as an evolutionary process in its own right, rather than as a mere product of natural selection. Through niche construction organisms not only influence the nature of their world, but also in part determine the selection pressures to which they and their descendants are exposed, and they do so in a non-random manner.