Measuring Improvement Capabilities in a Health System: Findings From a Content Validity Study.

Measurable improvements in the American Healthcare System have been elusive. To understand why, a survey measuring improvement capabilities in a health system was developed from a 2002 tool that measured an outdated quality improvement methodology. That survey was tested for content validity and achieved an overall representativeness content validity index of 87.

Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesias are Frequent and Impact Quality of Life in Parkinson's Disease: A 5-Year Follow-Up Study.

Background: Levodopa-induced dyskinesias (LID) are frequent in Parkinson's disease (PD).

Objective: To analyze the change in the frequency of LID over time, identify LID related factors, and characterize how LID impact on patients' quality of life (QoL).

Patients And Methods: PD patients from the 5-year follow-up COPPADIS cohort were included.

Antibiotic prescription patterns in patients with suspected urinary tract infections in Ecuador.

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are among the most common cause to prescribe antibiotics in primary care. Diagnosis is based on the presence of clinical symptoms in combination with the results of laboratory tests. Antibiotic therapy is the primary approach to the treatment of UTIs; however, some studies indicate that therapeutics in UTIs may be suboptimal, potentially leading to therapeutic failure and increased bacterial resistance.

Staging Parkinson's disease according to the MNCD classification correlates with caregiver burden.

Background And Objective: Recently, we demonstrated that staging Parkinson's disease (PD) with a novel simple classification called MNCD, based on four axes (motor, non-motor, cognition, and dependency) and five stages, correlated with disease severity and patients' quality of life. Here, we analyzed the correlation of MNCD staging with PD caregiver's status.

Patients And Methods: Data from the baseline visit of PD patients and their principal caregiver recruited from 35 centers in Spain from the COPPADIS cohort from January 2016 to November 2017 were used to apply the MNCD total score (from 0 to 12) and MNCD stages (from 1 to 5) in this cross-sectional analysis.

Response to levodopa in Parkinson's disease over time. A 4-year follow-up study.

Background And Objective: A good response to levodopa is a key factor to indicate device-aided therapies in people with Parkinson's disease (PwPD). The aim of the present study was to analyze the response to levodopa in PwPD with motor fluctuations followed for 4 years.

Patients And Methods: PwPD with motor fluctuations recruited from January 2016 to November 2017 from the COPPADIS cohort and assessed annually (from baseline to 4-year follow-up) during the OFF and ON states were included in this analysis.