What matters to patients? A timely question for value-based care.

Background: Our healthcare system is moving towards patient-centered and value-based care models that prioritize health outcomes that matter to patients. However, little is known about what aspects of care patients would prioritize when presented with choices of desirable attributes and whether these patient priorities differ based on certain demographics.

Objective: To assess patients' priorities for a range of attributes in ambulatory care consultations across five key health service delivery domains and determine potential associations between patient priorities and certain demographic profiles.

Does Provider Self-Reporting of Etiquette Behaviors Improve Patient Experience? A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: There is a glaring lack of published evidence-based strategies to improve the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient experience scores on the physician domain. Strategies that have been used are resource intensive and difficult to sustain.

Objective: We hypothesized that prompting providers to assess their own etiquette-based practices every 2 weeks over the course of 1 year would improve patient experience on the physician domain.

The effectiveness of prophylactic inferior vena cava filters in trauma patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Importance: Trauma is known to be one of the strongest risk factors for pulmonary embolism (PE). Current guidelines recommend low-molecular-weight heparin therapy for prevention of PE, but trauma places some patients at risk of excess bleeding. Experts are divided on the role of prophylactic inferior vena cava (IVC) filters to prevent PE.

A systematic review of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis strategies in patients with renal insufficiency, obesity, or on antiplatelet agents.

Background: There is uncertainty about optimal strategies for venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis among select populations such as patients with renal insufficiency, obesity, or patients taking antiplatelet drugs including aspirin. Their physiologies make prophylaxis particularly challenging.

Purpose: We performed a comparative effectiveness review of the literature on efficacy and safety of VTE prophylaxis in these populations.

Pharmacologic and mechanical strategies for preventing venous thromboembolism after bariatric surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

We sought to assess the comparative effectiveness and safety of pharmacologic and mechanical strategies to prevent venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients undergoing bariatric surgery. We searched (through August 2012) for primary studies that had at least 2 different interventions. Of 30,902 citations, we identified 8 studies of pharmacologic strategies and 5 studies of filter placement.

Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis in patients with traumatic brain injury: a systematic review.

Objective: There is considerable practice variation and clinical uncertainty about the choice of prophylaxis for preventing venous thromboembolism in patients with traumatic brain injury. We performed a systematic review to assess both the effectiveness and safety of pharmacologic and mechanical prophylaxis, and the optimal time to initiate pharmacologic prophylaxis in hospitalized patients with traumatic brain injury.

Data Sources And Study Selection: MEDLINE®, EMBASE®, SCOPUS, CINAHL, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, clinicaltrial.

A brief questionnaire for assessing patient healthcare experiences in low-income settings.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and to assess the validity and reliability of two brief questionnaires for assessing patient experiences with hospital and outpatient care in a low-income setting.

Design: Using literature review and data from focus groups (n = 14), we developed questionnaires to assess patient experiences with inpatient (I-PAHC) and with outpatient (O-PAHC) care in a low-income setting. Questionnaires were administered in person by trained interviewers.

Educating leaders in hospital management: a pre-post study in Ethiopian hospitals.

Despite recent focus on health systems strengthening, few studies report large-scale efforts to improve hospital management capacity in low-income countries, a central component of improving health care delivery. We sought to assess the contributions of a systems-based approach, the Ethiopian Hospital Management Initiative (EHMI), which established hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) trained through a Masters of Healthcare and Hospital Administration (MHA) degree programme in Ethiopia. We conducted a pre-post study of 24 hospitals that are managed by CEOs in the MHA programme.

Network-based social capital and capacity-building programs: an example from Ethiopia.

Introduction: Capacity-building programs are vital for healthcare workforce development in low- and middle-income countries. In addition to increasing human capital, participation in such programs may lead to new professional networks and access to social capital. Although network development and social capital generation were not explicit program goals, we took advantage of a natural experiment and studied the social networks that developed in the first year of an executive-education Master of Hospital and Healthcare Administration (MHA) program in Jimma, Ethiopia.

Educating leaders in hospital management: a new model in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Unlabelled: QUALITY ISSUE: The vast majority of health system capacity-building efforts have focused on enhancing medical and public health skills; less attention has been directed at developing hospital managers despite their central role in improving the functioning and quality of health-care systems. Initial ASSESSMENT AND CHOICE OF INTERVENTION: Initial assessment of hospital management systems demonstrated weak functioning in several management areas. In response, we developed with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) a novel Master of Hospital Administration (MHA) program, reflecting a collaborative effort of the MoH, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, Jimma University and Yale University.