Light distribution at the fruit tree-crop interface and consequences for yield in sloping upland agroforestry.

Agroforestry can improve soil conservation and overall farm productivity compared with sole-crop systems, but its benefits are limited by competitive interactions between tree and crop components. Studies on light competition have been performed on relatively flat land, but slope can influence light distribution. Little is known about optimizing light utilization and enhancing system productivity and/or income from agroforestry on sloping land.

Healthcare professionals' experiences of targeted health dialogues in primary health care.

Background: In Sweden, population-based targeted health dialogues are an important part of health promotion and disease prevention in primary health care. Targeted health dialogues are performed with a pedagogical approach to allow individuals to reflect over their resources, situation and motivation to change lifestyle habits together with a healthcare professional.

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore healthcare professionals' experiences of targeted health dialogues in primary health care.

Conditions and barriers for quality improvement work: a qualitative study of how professionals and health centre managers experience audit and feedback practices in Swedish primary care.

Background: High quality primary care is expected to be the basis of many health care systems. Expectations on primary care are rising as societies age and the burden of chronic disease grows. To stimulate adherence to guidelines and quality improvement, audit and feedback to professionals is often used, but the effects vary.

Exploring the usefulness of Lexis diagrams for quality improvement.

Background: Visualization is important to aid practitioners in understanding local care processes and drive quality improvement (QI). Important aspects include timely feedback and ability to plot data over time. Moreover, the complexity of care also needs to be understood, as it affects the variation of care processes.

Relationship between patient costs and patient pathways.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify actual (as-is) patient pathway variation among breast cancer patients and to investigate the relationship between pathways and the cost incurred by patients.

Design/methodology/approach: Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to analyze data from four Swedish hospital groups. Quantitative methods include event-log data mining and statistical analyses on the related patient cost from the Swedish breast cancer quality registry and case-costing system.