Quality of medical certificates issued in long-term sick leave or disability in relation to patient characteristics and delivery of health care

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kiessling ◽  
Britt Arrelöv ◽  
Anny Larsson ◽  
Peter Henriksson
Stroke ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhaan Vahidy ◽  
Liang Zhu ◽  
Nancy J Edwards

Introduction: The American Heart Association’s updated guidelines for management of patients with primary intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) recommend monitoring and early care at centers with advanced nursing and neuro-critical care expertise. This entails frequent transfer of ICH patients to certified Comprehensive Stroke Centers (CSC) for higher level of care. We hypothesized that transferred patients (TP) to a CSC will differ from directly admitted patients (DAP) in terms of patient characteristics, treatment factors, and functional and quality of life (QOL) outcomes. Methods: We analyzed data from a prospectively collected ICH registry at our CSC. Patients with traumatic or secondary causes of ICH were excluded. We collected data on demographics, comorbidities, presentation lab values, clinical characteristics, radiological parameters, in-hospital treatment variables, and discharge and long term outcomes. Functional outcomes were captured as modified Rankin Scale (mRS) and EuroQol 5D (EQ-5D) was used to assess QOL indices. Results: Out of a total 192 primary ICH patients, 114 (59.4%) were transferred-in. TP were significantly older, had lower diastolic blood pressure, lower arrival National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, and smaller hematoma volumes as compared to DAP. A higher proportion of TP had a good discharge functional outcome (mRS score 0 - 3) as compared to DAP (29.8% vs. 15.4%, p = 0.02), this trend was also observed for Day-90 mRS (34.2% vs. 24.4%, p = 0.09). TP also reported significantly better QOL indices at Day-90; EQ-5D total median (Q1, Q3) score [10 (6,16) vs. 15 (9.5,18), p = 0.02] and self-reported median (Q1,Q3) score [75 (50,88) vs. 62.5(40,70)], p < 0.01]. Day-90 data are complete for approximately 50% patients. After adjusting for initial stroke severity, the discharge mRS was however not significantly different between TP and DAP. Conclusions: A larger proportion of ICH patients were transferred-in. Our data suggest that TP have lower disease severity, and better discharge and long term outcomes. However, they had similar treatment intensity as DAP at the CSC. We continue to capture day-90, 6 and 12-month functional and QOL data, which will be presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sera Tapu-Ta'ala

<p>Background Pacific people are dying younger compared to other New Zealanders because of complications resulting from uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus. Good diabetes control is achievable with early use of insulin because of its effectiveness, and proven long term benefits to quality of life. An understanding of how Samoan people with type 2 diabetes make their transition to insulin therapy will assist in understanding how insulin is perceived, which will inform health care professionals in their work with those diagnosed with diabetes. Aim of Research The aim of the research is to explore and describe how Samoan people with type 2 diabetes in New Zealand made the transition to insulin therapy for better glycaemic control. Design The Fonofale Model was used as the theoretical framework, from which to understand Samoan peoples' experiences. This research used a qualitative descriptive methodology. In-depth interviews were used to gather the stories of four Samoan participants over the age of 18 years diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings Three major themes emerged from the analysis of the participants' stories. These were: living with diabetes, making the transition to insulin therapy and realisation. The findings led to the creation of the Ia Malu model, which describes the experiences of the participants in this study. Conclusion This study confirmed that there are immense challenges and struggles encountered by people with diabetes. Their adjustment to the illness as well as making the transition to using insulin takes time. As a result of this, it is fundamental for nurses/health care professionals to understand that this is the reality for these people, and they must therefore provide time for people to adjust.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-24
Author(s):  
Elena S. Akarachkova ◽  
◽  
Anton A. Beliaev ◽  
Dmitrii V. Blinov ◽  
Evgenii V. Bugorskii ◽  
...  

World Health Organization declared COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Fear of illness, self-isolation/quarantine, and reduced quality of life dramatically increased the prevalence of stress-related disorders in the population. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the preventive health-care measures aimed at short-term and long-term COVID-19 pandemic consequences reduction and promotion of social stability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Askerud ◽  
Jenny Conder

The health system in New Zealand and Australia requires health practitioners to prepare for the challenge of long-term conditions. Wagner’s 1998 Chronic Care Model advocates a move away from the traditional acute model of primary health care to a model that addresses the long-term episodic nature of chronic disease. Nurse case management has been developed over the last 2 decades as a means to coordinate health services for people with long-term conditions. This meta-synthesis combines the results of 15 qualitative research studies that have a similar research question regarding peoples’ perceptions of nurse case management. The research synthesises the experiences of people with long-term conditions on the quality of care under a nurse case management model of primary health care. Over 1000 people were represented across the studies, and the results suggest that people had a high degree of confidence and trust in their nurse case manager, were better able to manage their health conditions with nurse case management support, and had better access to appropriate health care. This research suggests that nurse case management is an effective model of care and may contribute to improved quality of life and better health care for those with long-term health conditions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Hay ◽  
Krysia Dziedzic ◽  
Nadine Foster ◽  
George Peat ◽  
Danielle van der Windt ◽  
...  

BackgroundOsteoarthritis (OA) is the most common long-term condition managed in UK general practice. However, care is suboptimal despite evidence that primary care and community-based interventions can reduce OA pain and disability.ObjectivesThe overall aim was to improve primary care management of OA and the health of patients with OA. Four parallel linked workstreams aimed to (1) develop a health economic decision model for estimating the potential for cost-effective delivery of primary care OA interventions to improve population health, (2) develop and evaluate new health-care models for delivery of core treatments and support for self-management among primary care consulters with OA, and to investigate prioritisation and implementation of OA care among the public, patients, doctors, health-care professionals and NHS trusts, (3) determine the effectiveness of strategies to optimise specific components of core OA treatment using the example of exercise and (4) investigate the effect of interventions to tackle barriers to core OA treatment, using the example of comorbid anxiety and depression in persons with OA.Data sourcesThe North Staffordshire Osteoarthritis Project database, held by Keele University, was the source of data for secondary analyses in workstream 1.MethodsWorkstream 1 used meta-analysis and synthesis of published evidence about effectiveness of primary care treatments, combined with secondary analysis of existing longitudinal population-based cohort data, to identify predictors of poor long-term outcome (prognostic factors) and design a health economic decision model to estimate cost-effectiveness of different hypothetical strategies for implementing optimal primary care for patients with OA. Workstream 2 used mixed methods to (1) develop and test a ‘model OA consultation’ for primary care health-care professionals (qualitative interviews, consensus, training and evaluation) and (2) evaluate the combined effect of a computerised ‘pop-up’ guideline for general practitioners (GPs) in the consultation and implementing the model OA consultation on practice and patient outcomes (parallel group intervention study). Workstream 3 developed and investigated in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) how to optimise the effect of exercise in persons with knee OA by tailoring it to the individual and improving adherence. Workstream 4 developed and investigated in a cluster RCT the extent to which screening patients for comorbid anxiety and depression can improve OA outcomes. Public and patient involvement included proposal development, project steering and analysis. An OA forum involved public, patient, health professional, social care and researcher representatives to debate the results and formulate proposals for wider implementation and dissemination.ResultsThis programme provides evidence (1) that economic modelling can be used in OA to extrapolate findings of cost-effectiveness beyond the short-term outcomes of clinical trials, (2) about ways of implementing support for self-management and models of optimal primary care informed by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommendations, including the beneficial effects of training in a model OA consultation on GP behaviour and of pop-up screens in GP consultations on the quality of prescribing, (3) against adding enhanced interventions to current effective physiotherapy-led exercise for knee OA and (4) against screening for anxiety and depression in patients with musculoskeletal pain as an addition to current best practice for OA.ConclusionsImplementation of evidence-based care for patients with OA is feasible in general practice and has an immediate impact on improving the quality of care delivered to patients. However, improved levels of quality of care, changes to current best practice physiotherapy and successful introduction of psychological screening, as achieved by this programme, did not substantially reduce patients’ pain and disability. This poses important challenges for clinical practice and OA research.LimitationsThe key limitation in this work is the lack of improvement in patient-reported pain and disability despite clear evidence of enhanced delivery of evidence-based care.Future work recommendations(1) New thinking and research is needed into the achievable and desirable long-term goals of care for people with OA, (2) continuing investigation into the resources needed to properly implement clinical guidelines for management of OA as a long-term condition, such as regular monitoring to maintain exercise and physical activity and (3) new research to identify subgroups of patients with OA as a basis for stratified primary care including (i) those with good prognosis who can self-manage with minimal investigation or specialist treatment, (ii) those who will respond to, and benefit from, specific interventions in primary care, such as physiotherapy-led exercise, and (iii) develop research into effective identification and treatment of clinically important anxiety and depression in patients with OA and into the effects of pain management on psychological outcomes in patients with OA.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN06984617, ISRCTN93634563 and ISRCTN40721988.FundingThis project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme and will be published in full inProgramme Grants for Applied Research Programme; Vol. 6, No. 4. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.


Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 1041-1041
Author(s):  
Mathilde Faller ◽  
Sidsel Marie Tønder ◽  
Thomas Porstmann

Abstract Relative to the general population, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is impaired in patients with hemophilia, who report increased pain and reduced physical activity. It is therefore of interest to assess the change in HRQoL after long-term prophylactic treatment. Concizumab is an anti-tissue factor pathway inhibitor monoclonal antibody in clinical development for a subcutaneous, prophylactic treatment of patients with hemophilia. Here, we present results from exploratory analyses assessing changes in HRQoL after long-term concizumab treatment (≤126 treatment weeks), which includes data from the main and extension parts of explorer4 (NCT03196284) and explorer5 (NCT03196297) phase 2 trials. Both trials comprised a main part (≤24 weeks), and an extension part (explorer4: ≤94 weeks; explorer5: ≤102 weeks). In explorer4, patients with hemophilia A and B with inhibitors (HAwI/HBwI) were recruited and randomized 2:1 to concizumab prophylaxis (n=17) or recombinant activated factor VII on-demand treatment (n=9). Patients in the on-demand arm switched to concizumab prophylaxis in the extension part. Twenty-six patients were recruited for explorer4, 25 patients were exposed to concizumab in the extension part, and 22 patients completed the trial. In explorer5, 36 patients with severe hemophilia A (HA) were recruited, 32 patients entered the extension part, and 30 patients completed the trial. Patients were asked to complete the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36v2) at baseline (for this analysis, baseline was defined as the last assessment before first treatment with concizumab), and throughout the main and extension parts. Scoring was conducted according to the SF-36v2 scoring software (version 5.0). Only patients who completed the entire trial were included for analysis. T score points of SF-36v2 domains were used to determine clinically meaningful differences at group level from baseline to the end of the extension part, based on minimally important difference criteria (MID; SF-36v2 manual 3rd edition, 2013). At an individual level, a responder analysis was conducted to identify the proportion of patients who had improved scores in the physical component summary (PCS), physical function (PF) and bodily pain (BP) domains, based on the recommended individual-level response threshold of 3.4, 4.3 and 6.2, respectively (based on 2009 United States general population norms; SF-36v2 manual). The results presented here demonstrate the change in HRQoL before and after long-term concizumab use in the main and extension parts of explorer4 and explorer5. For explorer4, 22 patients (14 HAwI; 8 HBwI) were included in the current exploratory analysis, which showed that the difference in improvement from baseline to end of extension part exceeded the MID thresholds for PCS score (Table 1), at group level. Additionally, the MID thresholds were also met for PF, BP, role-physical, general health, vitality, social functioning, and mental health domains in explorer4 (Table 1). At an individual level, the responder analysis revealed that 63.6%, 54.5% and 50.0% of 22 patients had an improvement that met or exceeded the response threshold for PCS, PF and BP scores. In the 30 patients with severe HA included in the explorer5 analysis, PCS score met the MID threshold for difference in improvement from baseline to end of extension, although large standard deviations were observed (Table 1). At an individual level, the responder analysis revealed that 43.3%, 33.3% and 33.3% of 30 patients had an improvement that met or exceeded the response threshold for PCS, PF and BP scores. While these analyses are exploratory and should be interpreted with caution, they illustrated that patients with HAwI/HBwI reported improved HRQoL after long-term, subcutaneous concizumab prophylaxis, particularly in clinically relevant domains such as PF and BP, suggesting a potential positive effect of concizumab prophylaxis on physical functioning and reduced pain. Interestingly, PCS improvement was observed across all hemophilia subgroups, suggesting better functional health, albeit the large standard deviation reported. The potential beneficial effect of concizumab prophylaxis on HRQoL in hemophilia patients is being investigated further in the ongoing phase 3 trials. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Faller: Novo Nordisk Health Care AG: Current Employment. Marie Tønder: Novo Nordisk Health Care AG: Current Employment. Porstmann: Novo Nordisk Health Care AG: Current Employment.


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