Setting a prioritized agenda to drive speech-language therapy research in health.

Background: Prioritized research agendas are viewed internationally as an important method for ensuring that health research meets actual areas of clinical need. There is growing evidence for speech-language therapy-prioritized research agendas, particularly in disorder-specific areas. However, there are few general research priority agendas to guide speech-language therapy research.

The Ethical Imperative to Move to a Seven-Day Care Model.

Whilst the nature of human illness is not determined by time of day or day of week, we currently structure health service delivery around a five-day delivery model. At least one country is endeavouring to develop a systems-based approach to planning a transition from five- to seven-day healthcare delivery models, and some services are independently instituting program reorganization to achieve these ends as research, amongst other things, highlights increased mortality and morbidity for weekend and after-hours admissions to hospitals. In this article, we argue that this issue does not merely raise instrumental concerns but also opens up a normative ethical dimension, recognizing that clinical ethical dilemmas are impacted on and created by systems of care.

Feasibility and cost analysis of implementing high intensity aphasia clinics within a sub-acute setting.

The current study explored the clinical feasibility and costs of embedding three different intensive service delivery models for aphasia treatment (computer, group therapy, and therapy with a speech pathology therapy assistant) within three sub-acute facilities. The study employed a two cohort comparison design, with the first cohort (n = 22) receiving the standard service of treatment currently offered. This treatment was delivered by a speech-language pathologist and involved on average 3 hours of treatment/week over 8 weeks.