Quality care process metrics (QCP-Ms) in nursing and midwifery care processes: a rapid realist review (RRR) protocol.

In 2018, the Office of the Nursing and Midwifery Services Director (ONMSD) completed phase one of work which culminated in the development and launch of seven research reports with defined suites of quality care process metrics (QCP-Ms) and respective indicators for the practice areas - acute care, midwifery, children's, public health nursing, older persons, mental health and intellectual disability nursing in Ireland. This paper presents a rapid realist review protocol that will systematically review the literature that examines QCP-Ms in practice; what worked, or did not work for whom, in what contexts, to what extent, how and why? The review will explore if there are benefits of using the QCP-Ms and what are the contexts in which these mechanisms are triggered. The essence of this rapid realist review is to ascertain how a change in context generates a particular mechanism that produces specific outcomes.

Identifying the role of public health nurses during first postnatal visits: Experiences of mothers and public health nurses in Ireland.

Aim And Objective: Explore the views and experiences of quality of care provided during a first postnatal visit from the perspectives of mothers and public health nurses.

Background: Quality of nursing care is high on the policy agenda internationally, especially in the year of Nurse and Midwife. Public health nurses are acknowledged nationally and globally as essential health professionals supporting infants and parents.

Factors associated with maternal readmission to hospital, attendance at emergency rooms or visits to general practitioners within three months postpartum.

Unlabelled: While most women remain healthy after giving birth to their baby, others experience complications that require medical attention or readmission to hospital. However, data on maternal attendance for medical care postpartum or readmission to hospital are not collected or reported routinely in many countries so the extent of health problems experienced remain unknown. Collecting data on the proportion of women who seek medical care in the early postpartum period may deepen understanding of risk factors, the consequences for women, their families and the maternity care system and, ultimately, help identify preventative strategies and processes.

Measuring psychological safety in healthcare teams: developing an observational measure to complement survey methods.

Background: Psychological safety is a dynamic team-level phenomenon which exists when team members believe that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. In healthcare teams, the presence of psychological safety is critical to delivering safe care. Scholars have highlighted a need for alternative measures which compliment survey-based measures of psychological safety in healthcare teams.

A systematic review exploring the content and outcomes of interventions to improve psychological safety, speaking up and voice behaviour.

Background: Having psychologically safe teams can improve learning, creativity and performance within organisations. Within a healthcare context, psychological safety supports patient safety by enabling engagement in quality improvement and encouraging staff to speak up about errors. Despite the low levels of psychological safety in healthcare teams and the important role it plays in supporting patient safety, there is a dearth of research on interventions that can be used to improve psychological safety or its related constructs.

Using Lean Six Sigma to improve rates of day of surgery admission in a national thoracic surgery department.

Objective: The aim of this study is to improve rates of day of surgery admission (DOSA) for all suitable elective thoracic surgery patients.

Design: Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methods were used to enable improvements to both the operational process and the organizational working of the department over a period of 19 months.

Setting: A national thoracic surgery department in a large teaching hospital in Ireland.

Zap it track it: the application of Lean Six Sigma methods to improve the screening system of low-grade mucinous neoplasms of the appendix in an acute hospital setting.

Objective: To improve the number of patients receiving annual computed tomography (CT) scan and tumour markers, who are diagnosed with low-grade mucinous neoplasms (LAMN).

Design: A pre-/post-intervention design was employed using Lean Six Sigma methods to identify gaps in the screening system and to develop and implement solutions for a more robust, auditable screening programme.

Setting: The patients diagnosed with LAMN of the appendix referred to the acute hospital and are enrolled in the screening service.

Developing outcome, process and balancing measures for an emergency department longitudinal patient monitoring system using a modified Delphi.

Background: Early warning score systems have been widely recommended for use to detect clinical deterioration in patients. The Irish National Emergency Medicine Programme has developed and piloted an emergency department specific early warning score system. The objective of this study was to develop a consensus among frontline healthcare staff, quality and safety staff and health systems researchers regarding evaluation measures for an early warning score system in the Emergency Department.

A scoping review of the pharmaceutical care needs of people with sensory loss.

Objectives: This scoping review collated evidence of the pharmaceutical care needs of people with sensory loss (SL).

Methods: Electronic databases were searched with no limit on year of publication: Medline (1946); Embase; Cinahl (1979); and Web of Science (1985). Search terms included the following: pharmacy; sight/hearing/dual impairment.

A study of human resource competencies required to implement community rehabilitation in less resourced settings.

Background: It is estimated that over one billion persons worldwide have some form of disability. However, there is lack of knowledge and prioritisation of how to serve the needs and provide opportunities for people with disabilities. The community-based rehabilitation (CBR) guidelines, with sufficient and sustained support, can assist in providing access to rehabilitation services, especially in less resourced settings with low resources for rehabilitation.

Acute kidney disease and renal recovery: consensus report of the Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) 16 Workgroup.

Consensus definitions have been reached for both acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) and these definitions are now routinely used in research and clinical practice. The KDIGO guideline defines AKI as an abrupt decrease in kidney function occurring over 7 days or less, whereas CKD is defined by the persistence of kidney disease for a period of >90 days. AKI and CKD are increasingly recognized as related entities and in some instances probably represent a continuum of the disease process.

Sleep quality in patients with chronic illness.

Aims And Objectives: To explore sleep quality in patients with chronic illness in primary care.

Background: Many people suffer from chronic illness with the numbers increasing. One common issue arises from problems that people have with their quality of sleep: a largely under-researched topic.

The perceived impact of interprofessional information sharing on young people about their sexual healthcare.

This article presents the results from an analysis of data from service providers and young adults who were formerly in state care about how information about the sexual health of young people in state care is managed. In particular, the analysis focuses on the perceived impact of information sharing between professionals on young people. Twenty-two service providers from a range of professions including social work, nursing and psychology, and 19 young people aged 18-22 years who were formerly in state care participated in the study.

Walking away from back pain: one step at a time - a community-based randomised controlled trial.

Background: Low back pain is highly prevalent and a significant public health burden in Western society. Feasibility studies suggest personalised pedometer-driven walking is an acceptable and effective motivating tool in the management of chronic low back pain (CLBP ≥ 12 weeks). The proposed study will investigate pedometer-driven walking as a low cost, easily accessible, and sustainable means of physical activity to improve disability and clinical outcomes for people with CLBP in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Policy analysis: palliative care in Ireland.

Palliative care for patients with advanced illness is a subject of growing importance in health services, policy and research. In 2001 Ireland became one of the first nations to publish a dedicated national palliative care policy. This paper uses the 'policy analysis triangle' as a framework to examine what the policy entailed, where the key ideas originated, why the policy process was activated, who were the key actors, and what were the main consequences.

The relationship between older people's awareness of the term elder abuse and actual experiences of elder abuse.

Background: Awareness and experiences of elder abuse have been researched as separate entities; this study examined the relationship between awareness of elder abuse, disclosure of abuse, and reporting of abuse among people aged 65 years or older.

Methods: A national cross-sectional survey of a random sample of 2,012 community-dwelling older people was carried out in Ireland. People described their understanding of the term elder abuse followed by their experiences of mistreatment.

Elder abuse and neglect in Ireland: results from a national prevalence survey.

Objective: To measure the 12-month prevalence of elder abuse and neglect in community-dwelling older people in Ireland and examine the risk profile of people who experienced mistreatment and that of the perpetrators.

Design: Cross-sectional general population survey.

Setting: Community.

The placenta as a compensatory iodine storage organ.

Background: The production of iodine-containing thyroid hormones necessary for brain development in the fetus depends not only on maternal dietary intake but also on placental iodine transport. The optimum level of iodine nutrition during pregnancy and the proportion of the pregnant population reaching this level have previously been evaluated. Little information exists on the ability of the placenta to either accumulate or store iodine.

Where is nursing in academic nursing? Disciplinary discourses, identities and clinical practice: a critical perspective from Ireland.

Aim: To elicit the languages of legitimation of senior nursing academics and national leaders and to investigate the extent to which distinctive disciplinary identities and discourses are embedded in them.

Background: Over six years after Irish nursing education became established in the higher education sector, an investigation into the disciplinary maturity of the field is overdue.

Design: A constructivist-structuralist research design was used; data were elicited by means of naturalistic professional conversations and subjected to critical discourse analytic methods to interrogate their structuring and structured character.

The PA projection of the clavicle: a dose-reducing technique.

This study compares dose and image quality during PA and AP radiography of the clavicle. The methodology involved a cadaver-based dose and image quality study. Results demonstrate a statistically significant 56.

Academic leadership in nursing: legitimating the discipline in contested spaces.

Aim: To investigate the potential of recent conceptual developments in the sociology of education for conceptualising academic leadership in nursing.

Background: During an investigation into the current status and future trajectory of academic nursing in Ireland, academic leadership emerged as a major concern for respondents.

Method: The languages of legitimation of academic leaders were elicited in in-depth interviews and analysed as expressions of underlying legitimation principles.

Illuminating the essential elements of the role of the clinical placement co-ordinator: a phenomenological inquiry.

Aims And Objectives: The research aims to illuminate the essential elements of the role of the clinical placement co-ordinator.

Background: Clinical placement co-ordinators were introduced to Irish health-care settings to support the clinical learning of nursing students after the ending of the apprenticeship model of nurse training and in the context of reforms culminating in the introduction of the BSc (Nursing) degree as the sole route of entry to practice in 2002.

Design: A phenomenological design was used in order to explicate the necessary and sufficient elements of the role from clinical placement co-ordinators' accounts of their experiences of and in the post.

Of bedpans and ivory towers? Nurse academics' identities and the sacred and profane: a Bernsteinian analysis and discussion paper.

Aim: In light of debates arising from recent developments in Irish nursing education, this paper analyses tensions in the positioning of nursing in academia in terms of notions of the sacred and profane, and the symbolic boundaries between them, and discusses the implications of this analysis for nurse academics' identities.

Background: The entry of nursing education to the higher education sector has occurred against a discursive backcloth of opposition which constructs nursing work as either sacred, and under threat from the academy, or profane, and unworthy of a place in it.

Method: Conceptual resources derived from the work of Basil Bernstein are deployed to analyse the forces driving the loom weaving this discursive backcloth.