Tuesday 31 January 2012

Preventing emergency readmissions to hospital

"This report presents a scoping review of the evidence and potential for use of ‘emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge from hospital’ as an indicator within the NHS Outcomes Framework."

Preventing emergency readmissions to hospital: a scoping review
E Nolte, M Roland, S Guthrie, L Brereton
RAND Europe
January 2012

Read more here.

Monday 30 January 2012

Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety

"This guidance sets out our expectation that all doctors will, whatever their role, take appropriate action to raise and act on concerns about patient care, dignity and safety."


Raising and acting on concerns about patient safety
General Medical Council
January 2012

Read more here.

Leadership and management for all doctors

"This guidance sets out the wider management and leadership responsibilities of doctors in the workplace."

Leadership and management for all doctors
General Medical Council
January 2012

Read more here.

Transformation lessons from disease-based strategies

"Examining disease-based strategies and frameworks provides meaningful lessons for health system transformation in Canada."

Transformation lessons from disease-based strategies: an environmental scan
Canadian Health Services Research Foundation
January 2012

Read more here.

Friday 27 January 2012

Working for equity in health

"Despite the growing number of policy commitments to tackle inequities, overall improvements in health have been dogged by persistent and increasing inequalities."

Working for equity in health: the role of work, worklessness and social protection in health inequalities: context, situation analysis and evidence review
Health Action Partnership International, The Scottish Government
January 2012

The full report is available here, and a summary is available here.

Genomic technology in healthcare

"This report sets out a strategic vision for how the healthcare system in the UK – and particularly in the NHS – can benefit from the mainstream adoption of genomic technology."

Building on our inheritance: genomic technology in healthcare
Human Genomics Strategy Group
January 2012

Read more here.

The Management Code

"An excellent manager will always have safety in mind when planning change and patient client services."

The Management Code
The Institute of Healthcare Management
January 2012

Read more here.

Thursday 26 January 2012

Educating surgical patients to reduce the risk of venous thromboembolism

"A simple method of introducing patient education at pre-assessment clinic and as part of their discharge planning, for major elective surgery, is an effective system in improving patient understanding of VTE, its risk factors and the importance of prophylaxis."

Educating surgical patients to reduce the risk of venous thromboembolism: an audit of an effective strategy
H Sadideen, JM O'Callaghan, M Navidi, M Sayegh
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Short Reports, 2011, 2(12):97

Read more here.

Service-line management: Can it improve quality and efficiency?

Implementing Service Line Reporting and Service Line Management "works best when it is central to the overall management approach of the trust and part of its day-to-day way of working."

Service-line management: Can it improve quality and efficiency?
C Foot, L Sonola, J Maybin, C Naylor
The King's Fund
January 2012

Read more here.

Good Governance Handbook

"This document has been designed to provide some key principles of good governance that can aid decision making at board level in healthcare providers."


Good Governance Handbook
J Bullivant, R Burgess, A Corbett-Nolan, K Godfrey
Good Governance Institute, Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership
January 2012

Read more here.

Telehealth - lessons to learn

"Development of an integrated patient record greatly facilitates collaboration between different clinicians involved in patient care, with telehealth data available to communitywide electronic health records."

Telehealth: What can the NHS learn from experience at the US Veterans Health Administration?
J Cruickshank, E Winpenny
2020health.org
January 2012

Read more here.

Experience led commissioning for end of life care

"The ELC commissioning process was thought to be different from the usual way of doing things because it was seen as more ‘human’ and ‘real’, involved ‘meaningful’ user engagement, contributions from a wide range of stakeholders, and was run as a change management process."

Experience led commissioning for end of life care: final evaluation report
A Cheshire, D Ridge
January 2012

Read more here.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Paying for "end-of-life" drugs in Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom

"This issue brief compares U.K., Australian, and German policies on coverage of end-of-life medicines, particularly those that are not curative and offer modest increments in median survival rates."

Paying for "end-of-life" drugs in Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom: balancing policy, pragmatism, and societal values
Issues in International Health Policy
The Commonwealth Fund
January 2012

Read more here.

Impact of PubMed search filters on the retrieval of evidence by physicians

"The use of search filters can assist physicians to search more effectively, in less time and with less frustration."


Impact of PubMed search filters on the retrieval of evidence by physicians
SZ Shariff, JM Sontrop, RB Haynes, AV Iansavichus, KA McKibbon, ML Wilczynski, MA Weir, MR Speechley, A Thind, AX Garg
Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2012

Read more here.

Practice facilitation within primary care settings

"Practice facilitation has a moderately robust effect on evidence based guideline adoption within primary care."

Systematic review and meta-analysis of practice facilitation within primary care settings
NB Baskerville, C Liddy, W Hogg
Annals of Family Medicine, 2012, 10(1):63-74

Read more here.

Activity based funding versus integrated health care reform

This paper reviews the international evidence about the effectiveness of two initiatives: activity based funding versus integrated health care.

Beyond the hospital walls: activity based funding versus integrated health care reform
M Cohen, M McGregor, I Ivanova, C Kinkaid
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
January 2012

Read more here.

Friday 20 January 2012

Public sector, disrupted

"Retail clinics, telemedicine, single organ hospitals, surgical robots, medical tourism and personalized medicine are just a few of the disruptive health care models that hold tremendous promise for breaking traditional price and performance trade-offs in this sector."

Public sector, disrupted: How disruptive innovation can help government achieve more for less
A GovLab Study
Deloitte
2012

Read more here.

Delivering sustainable cost improvement programmes

This report is aimed at acute, ambulance, mental health and specialist NHS trusts and foundation trusts, and summaries how successful organisations approach the delivery of cost improvement programmes.

Delivering sustainable cost improvement programmes
Audit Commission
January 2012

Read more here.

Getting care right for patients after a heart attack

"Not all providers offer all four phases of cardiac rehabilitation which are set out in the National Service Framework for Coronary Heart Disease."

After the event: getting care right for patients after a heart attack
Heart UK
January 2012

Read more here.

Monday 16 January 2012

Delivering stepped care: an analysis of implementation in routine practice

"The application of core principles of implementation science (such as targeted planning, implementation strategies and clear activity specification) around service organisation is urgently required."

Delivering stepped care: an analysis of implementation in routine practice
DA Richards, P Bower, C Pagel, A Weaver, M Utley, J Cape, S Pilling, K Lovell, S Gilbody, J Leibowitz, L
Owens, R Paxton, S Hennessy, A Simpson, S Gallivan, D Tomson, C Vasilakis
Implementation Science, 2012, 7:3

Read more here.

Review of Innovation in the NHS

This report is a summary of the responses received in response to the Department of Health Call for Evidence and Ideas about how the adoption and diffusion of innovations can be accelerated across the NHS.

NHS Chief Executive’s Review of Innovation in the NHS Summary of the responses to the Call for Evidence and Ideas
Young Foundation
December 2011

Read more here.

Merger mania and hospital outcomes in the English NHS

"Given that mergers reduce the scope for competition between hospitals the findings suggest that further merger activity may not be the appropriate way of dealing with poorly performing hospitals."

Can governments do it better? Merger mania and hospital outcomes in the English NHS
M Gaynor, M Laudicella, C Propper
The Centre for Market and Public Organisation
January 2012

Read more here.

NICE guide for commissioners on end of life care for adults

"This commissioning guide is a resource to assist commissioners, clinicians and managers to commission high quality and evidence based services across England."


CMG42 Guide for commissioners on end of life care for adults
NICE
January 2012

Read more here.

Sunday 15 January 2012

Improving patient care and reducing costs

"This report synthesizes findings and lessons from case studies of four diverse health care organizations participating in the Brookings–Dartmouth ACO Pilot Program, launched in 2009 to support selected provider groups that are collaborating with private payers to form accountable care organizations (ACOs)."

Four health care organizations' efforts to improve patient care and reduce costs
AD van Citters, BK Larson, KL Carluzzo, JN Gbemudu, SA Kreindler, FM Wu, SM Shortell, EC Nelson, ES Fisher
The Commonwealth Fund
January 2012

Read more here.

Friday 13 January 2012

Can NHS hospitals do more with less?

"This report seeks to understand the factors that determine efficiency within hospitals and how hospital trusts can best make cost savings by improving efficiency, based on UK and international experience."

Can NHS hospitals do more with less?
J Hurst, S Williams
Nuffield Trust
January 2012

Read more here.

Thursday 12 January 2012

Cochrane quality and productivity topics

As part of the NHS Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) agenda, NICE and the UK Cochrane Centre are working together to summarise new Cochrane reviews which have shown that an intervention is either unsafe or cost ineffective.

Published each month, the Cochrane Quality and Productivity Topicshighlight potential disinvestment opportunities that can be used by the NHS to meet its overall QIPP targets, and include calculations of potential cost savings if implemented.”

Access the collection here.

Tuesday 10 January 2012

First steps towards quality improvement

"If you want to deliver sustainable improvements with greater speed and confidence, this resource will help you take the first steps."

First steps towards quality improvement: a simple guide to improving services
NHS Improvement
December 2011

Read more here.

Sunday 8 January 2012

Why clinical quality improvement fails to deliver bottom-line results

"As the U.S. health care system begins shifting its focus from volume to value, hospitals will need to adapt their cost structures and capacity to accommodate lower per capita utilization rates as well as reductions in the per-episode intensity of care."

The savings illusion - why clinical quality improvement fails to deliver bottom-line results
SS Rauh, EB Wadsworth, WB Weeks, JN Weinstein
New England Journal of Medicine, 2011, 365:e48

Read more here.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Integrated care for patients and populations: Improving outcomes by working together

"The aims of integrated care are widely supported by NHS staff as well as patient groups, and taking forward the proposals set out in this paper would therefore be welcomed by key stakeholders."

Integrated care for patients and populations: Improving outcomes by working together: A report to the Department of Health and the NHS Future Forum
N Goodwin, J Smith, A Davies, C Perry, R Rosen, A Dixon, J Dixon, C Ham
The King's Fund
January 2012

Read more here.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Emergency bed use: what the numbers tell us

"Using hospital beds more efficiently could save the NHS at least £1 billion a year and deliver benefits for patients."

Emergency bed use: what the numbers tell us
The King's Fund
December 2011

Read more here.

Commissioning effective dementia services in the new world

"Ensuring truly integrated commissioning and integrated care pathways would deliver better outcomes for people with dementia and would cost less than the current system."

Common and complex: commissioning effective dementia services in the new world
Alzheimer's Society
December 2011

Read more here.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Value of healthcare services

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals are coming together with  patients and their representatives to look at health services in south west London in the Better Services, Better Value review. The following six reports show much of the thinking and analysis that has taken place to understand how people use the south west London health services and the quality of the service they receive in terms of outcomes and experience.