The completion of partograms: knowledge, attitudes and practices of midwives in a public health obstetric unit in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

INTRODUCTION: most maternal and 24.3% of infant deaths occur during childbirth. Interventions during childbirth may reduce maternal and neonatal deaths. The Guidelines for maternity care in South Africa (2015) stipulates that all observations during labour should be recorded on a partogram. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitudes of nursing personnel and to evaluate their practices of completing partograms at National District Hospital, South Africa. METHODS: a two-phase, quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive study design was used. In phase 1, the knowledge and attitudes of midwives and nurses were evaluated. Midwives and nurses completed anonymous, self-administered questionnaires that assessed their knowledge and attitudes. In Phase 2, partogram practices were measured by assessing completed partograms using a data collection tick sheet. RESULTS: twelve of the 17 nursing personnel completed the questionnaires. More than 90% of participants answered basic partogram knowledge questions correctly, but only two thirds knew the criteria for obstructive labour and just more than half that for foetal distress. Participants displayed a positive attitude toward the use of partograms. Of the 171 randomly selected vaginal deliveries during the study period, only 57.1% delivered with a completed partogram. Most elements of foetal monitoring and progress of labour scored above 80%, however, for maternal monitoring scored poorly in 26.4% of cases. CONCLUSION: although 71.4% of partograms scored more than 75% for completion, the critical components that influence maternal and foetal death, like the identification of foetal distress, maternal wellbeing and progress of labour, were lacking.

Quality of Endoscopy Reports for Esophageal Cancer Patients: Where Do We Stand?

BACKGROUNDS AND AIMS: As treatment for esophageal cancer often involves a multidisciplinary approach, the initial endoscopic report is essential for communication between providers. Several guidelines have been established to standardize endoscopic reporting. This study evaluates the compliance of esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) reporting with the current national guidelines. METHODS: Combining the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and Society of Thoracic Surgeons guidelines, 11 quality indicators (QIs) for EGD and 8 for EUS were identified. We evaluated initial EGD and EUS reports from our institution (Memorial Sloan Kettering [MSK]) and outside hospitals (OSHs) and calculated individual and overall quality measure scores. Scores between locations were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and McNemar's test for paired data. RESULTS: In total, 115 initial EGD reports and 105 EUS reports were reviewed for patients who underwent surgery for esophageal cancer between 2014 and 2016. The median number of QIs reported for the initial EGD was 4 (IQR, 3-6)-only 34% of reports qualified as "good quality" (those with ≥ 6 QIs). None of the reports included all QIs. For patients who underwent EGD at both MSK and an OSH, 32% of reports from OSHs were good quality, compared with 68% from MSK (p < 0.001). Compliance with QIs was better for EUS reports: 71% of OSH reports and 72% of MSK reports were good quality. CONCLUSIONS: Detailed information on the initial endoscopic assessment is essential in today's age of multidisciplinary care. Identification and adoption of QIs for endoscopic reporting is warranted to ensure the provision of appropriate treatment.

Adverse Events in Korean Traditional Medicine Hospitals: A Retrospective Medical Record Review.

OBJECTIVES: Traditional medicine has been used worldwide in recent decades. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of adverse events (AEs) in traditional medicine hospitals and investigate patient and health-care utilization factors associated with AE occurrence. METHODS: A 2-stage review of 1152 randomly sampled charts in 2 teaching Korean traditional medicine hospitals was conducted. Three physicians and a quality improvement specialist identified AE occurrence, severity, and preventability using the Global Trigger Tool (Appendix 1, Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww.com/JPS/A19). Two traditional Korean medicine professors validated the findings. Logistic regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with AE occurrence. RESULTS: One hundred twenty-two admissions (10.6%) had at least one AE (7.39 events per 1000 patient days and 14.5 events per 100 admissions). Among 167 AEs, 73.7% were mild and 70.7% were judged preventable. Procedure-related AEs were most common. After considering other patient and health-care utilization characteristics, factors associated with AE occurrence were altered mental status on admission (OR, 3.86; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20-12.44), use of various traditional medicine therapies (OR, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.32-2.15), length of stay (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.03), and number of unique triggers (OR, 6.35; 95% CI, 4.54-8.89). CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 11% of inpatients in traditional medicine hospitals experienced AEs. Because patients have a higher risk of AEs, special attention should be paid to those with altered mental status on admission, receiving various traditional medicine therapies, staying for a longer period, and having various positive triggers.

Stories of change: the text analysis of handovers in an Italian psychiatric residential care home.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: There is a growing emphasis on communication as a result of the move towards the more inclusive approach associated with the community-based rehabilitation model. Therefore, more importance is attached to handovers. Besides ensuring transfer of information, handovers enhance group cohesion, socialize staff members to the practices of the service and capture its organizational culture. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: While handovers are mainly used for information transfer and to manage the services' daily routine, this paper offers an insight on how handovers can be conceived as valuable instruments to document cultural and organizational change. Only a limited amount of studies has focused on handovers in mental healthcare settings, and most of them only consider the perspectives of psychiatric nurses, while embracing a broader perspective, this paper provides valuable insights into the perspectives of various service providers. The overcoming of the dichotomy deficit-based vs. recovery-oriented model is possible if professionals use handovers to reflect upon their practice and the ways in which their cultural models are affected by the environmental context. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Handovers are valuable instruments to document organizational change. It would be important for psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities to keep track of the handover records over time as they may provide insightful information about cultural change and the transformations in the core values and beliefs held by professionals. ABSTRACT: Handovers assure a timely and correct information transfer while socializing workers to the service's culture; however, no study describes them as instruments to document organizational change and only a few have focused on psychiatric settings. Aim To investigate the change in the culture of an Italian psychiatric residential care home as perceived by its mental health workers (MHWs) over the course of two decades. Method Emotional text analysis (ETA) was used to analyse the MHWs' handovers completed from 1990 to 2011. Results The analysis generated four clusters and three main factors illustrating the change in the MHWs' representations of the residential care home and its occupants. The factors showed: (1) the shift from an individualistic, problem-focused view to an inclusive, community-based approach; (2) the presence of a descriptive as well as a specialized language; and (3) the presence of a double focus: on patients and professionals. Conclusions Handovers transcripts document the following changes: (1) a shift from a symptom-based to a recovery-oriented approach; (2) a modification of the MHWs values towards an holistic view of the patient; (3) a growing importance assigned to accountability, services integration and teamwork. The paper shows that handovers can be used diachronically to document organizational change.

Homeopathic clinical case reports: Development of a supplement (HOM-CASE) to the CARE clinical case reporting guideline.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a criteria catalog serving as a guideline for authors to improve the quality of reporting clinical case reports in homeopathy. METHOD: An online Delphi process was initiated with a panel of 19 homeopathic experts from Europe, the USA and India. Homeopathy specific item selection took place in three rounds of adjusting. The selected items can be used as an extension of the CARE clinical case reporting guideline. RESULTS: Eight homeopathy specific 'core' items were selected from a list of 31 suggested items; (1) the clinical history from a homeopathic perspective; (2) the type of homeopathy; detailed description of the medication--(3) nomenclature, (4) manufacture, (5) galenic form+dosage; outcomes--(6) objective evidence if available, (7) occurrence homeopathic aggravation, (8) assessment possible causal attribution of changes to the homeopathic treatment. A further 4 items were recommended for consideration as optional items when case reports are used for specific, in particular educational, purposes. The 8 core items can be used, merged into 6 items, as a homeopathy specific (HOM-CASE) extension to the CARE clinical case reporting guideline items 6, 9 and 10. CONCLUSION: Use of the HOM-CASE guideline extension will contribute to transparent and accurate reporting and can significantly improve the quality and reliability of clinical case reports in homeopathy.

Biosimilars: from technical to pharmacoeconomic considerations. 30th Rencontres Nationales de Pharmacologie et Recherche clinique pour l'Innovation et l'Evaluation des Technologies de Santé. Tables rondes.

A biosimilar is a biological medicinal product claimed to be similar to a reference biological medicinal product. Its development plan includes studies comparing it with the reference product in order to confirm its similarity in terms of quality, preclinical safety, clinical efficacy, and clinical safety, including immunogenicity. Biosimilars differ from generics both in their molecular complexity and in the specific requirements that apply to them. Since patents on many biological medicinal products will expire within the next 5 years in major therapeutic areas such as oncology, rheumatology and gastroenterology and as those products are so costly to the French national health insurance system, the availability of biosimilars would have a considerable economic impact. The round table has issued a number of recommendations intended to ensure that the upcoming arrival of biosimilars on the market is a success, in which prescribing physicians would have a central role in informing and reassuring patients, an efficient monitoring of the patients treated with biologicals would be set up and time to market for biosimilars would be speeded up.

El razonamiento clínico llevado a la historia clínica: un punto de vista diferente / Applying clinical reasoning to medical records. a different point of view

A lo largo de los años se han observado graves deficiencias en la confección de las historias clínicas, siendo la discusión diagnóstica el acápite que más dificultades presenta. En este artículo se analizan esas deficiencias, responsables de que la historia clínica carezca de sus más elementales características y funciones; tratando de llegar al origen de la mala calidad de las discusiones diagnósticas, a la vez que se propone un enfoque diferente que podría solucionar el problema. Se concluye que el problema gira alrededor de la exigencia incondicional de un esquema rígido, no aplicable de forma escrita en todas las situaciones, lo que provoca que el afán por la adherencia a un esquema, afecte el juicio clínico lógico(AU)

There have been serious deficiencies in the completion of medical records over the years, being the diagnostic discussion the section with more difficulties. This paper analyses such deficiencies, responsible for the lack of the most basic features and functions of medical records. It tries to get to the source of the poor quality of diagnostic discussions, while proposing a different approach that could solve the problem. We conclude that the problem is related to the unconditional requirement of a rigid structure, not applicable to all situations, which causes the adherence to this structure to affect the logical clinical reasoning(AU)

[Pregnant Cards information and medical records of primary care on prenatal care]. / Informações dos cartões de gestantes e dos prontuários da atenção básica sobre assistência pré-natal.

PURPOSE: To determine the agreement between the information on pregnant cards and on primary care medical records about prenatal assistance in the city of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. METHODS: A population study of 360 puerperal women living in this city was interviewed at three hospitals where the cards were copied. Prenatal care data were collected by reviewing the medical records at the city health unit. The information was collected, processed, and submitted to Kappa, Adjusted Kappa, and McNemar tests to check agreement and tendency to disagreement between the cards and the medical records. RESULTS: The levels of agreement within prenatal care were predominantly moderate (Kappa=0.4-0.6). There was a higher tendency to keep records of appointments on the cards (McNemar=22.3; p-value<0.01). Records of supplementation with folic acid and ferrous sulphate were kept more often on the medical records (McNemar=70.8 and 69.8, respectively; p-value<0.01). The tetanus vaccination coverage was about 50%. Clinical and obstetric procedures and laboratory tests were primarily recorded on the card. CONCLUSION: The medical records of primary care were underused as a tool for communication among health professionals, highlighting a precarious record keeping. The results suggest that thought be given to guarantee that the minimum procedures established by the Guidelines of Maternal and Infant Health are followed, and also to the importance of clinical record keeping in health services, since there is variation depending on the source of information.

Informações dos cartões de gestantes e dos prontuários da atenção básica sobre assistência pré-natal / Pregnant Cards information and medical records of primary care on prenatal care

OBJETIVO: Verificar a concordância entre as informações registradas nos cartões das gestantes e nos prontuários da Atenção Básica sobre a assistência pré-natal do município de Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brasil. MÉTODOS: Foi considerada uma população de estudo de 360 puérperas residentes no município, entrevistadas em três maternidades onde os cartões foram copiados. Os dados referentes às informações da assistência pré-natal registrados nos prontuários foram coletados por meio de uma revisão dos mesmos nas unidades de saúde do município. As informações foram coletadas, processadas e submetidas aos testes de Kappa, Kappa Ajustado e McNemar para verificar a concordância e a tendência de discordância entre o cartão da gestante e o prontuário. RESULTADOS: Os níveis de concordância sobre a assistência pré-natal foram predominantemente moderados (Kappa=0,4-0,6). Nota-se uma tendência de maior registro do número de consultas nos cartões das gestantes (McNemar=22,3; valor p<0,01). A suplementação com ácido fólico e sulfato ferroso apresentou tendência a um maior registro da informação no prontuário (McNemar=70,8 e 69,8; respectivamente; valor p<0,01). A cobertura de vacinação antitetânica foi de cerca de 50%. Foi priorizado o registro dos procedimentos clínico-obstétricos e dos exames laboratoriais no cartão da gestante. CONCLUSÃO: O prontuário da Atenção Básica foi subutilizado como instrumento de intercomunicação entre os profissionais de saúde, evidenciando a precariedade dos registros. Os resultados sugerem uma reflexão sobre a garantia da realização dos procedimentos mínimos estabelecidos ...

PURPOSE: To determine the agreement between the information on pregnant cards and on primary care medical records about prenatal assistance in the city of Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. METHODS: A population study of 360 puerperal women living in this city was interviewed at three hospitals where the cards were copied. Prenatal care data were collected by reviewing the medical records at the city health unit. The information was collected, processed, and submitted to Kappa, Adjusted Kappa, and McNemar tests to check agreement and tendency to disagreement between the cards and the medical records. RESULTS: The levels of agreement within prenatal care were predominantly moderate (Kappa=0.4-0.6). There was a higher tendency to keep records of appointments on the cards (McNemar=22.3; p-value<0.01). Records of supplementation with folic acid and ferrous sulphate were kept more often on the medical records (McNemar=70.8 and 69.8, respectively; p-value<0.01). The tetanus vaccination coverage was about 50%. Clinical and obstetric procedures and laboratory tests were primarily recorded on the card. CONCLUSION: The medical records of primary care were underused as a tool for communication among health professionals, highlighting a precarious record keeping. The results suggest that thought be given to guarantee that the minimum procedures established by the Guidelines of Maternal and Infant Health are followed, and also to the importance of clinical record keeping in health services, since there is variation depending on the source of information. .

Completeness and usability of ethnicity data in UK-based primary care and hospital databases.

BACKGROUND: Ethnicity recording across the National Health Service (NHS) has improved dramatically over the past decade. This study profiles the completeness, consistency and representativeness of routinely collected ethnicity data in both primary care and hospital settings. METHODS: Completeness and consistency of ethnicity recording was examined in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) and Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), and the ethnic breakdown of the CPRD was compared with that of the 2011 UK censuses. RESULTS: 27.1% of all patients in the CPRD (1990-2012) have ethnicity recorded. This proportion rises to 78.3% for patients registered since April 2006. The ethnic breakdown of the CPRD is comparable to the UK censuses. 79.4% of HES inpatients, 46.8% of outpatients and 26.8% of A&E patients had their ethnicity recorded. Amongst those with ethnicity recorded on >1 occasion, consistency was over 90% in all data sets except for HES inpatients. Combining CPRD and HES increased completeness to 97%, with 85% of patients having the same ethnicity recorded in both databases. CONCLUSIONS: Using CPRD ethnicity from 2006 onwards maximizes completeness and comparability with the UK population. High concordance within and across NHS sources suggests these data are of high value when examining the continuum of care. Poor completeness and consistency of A&E and outpatient data render these sources unreliable.

[A clinical method for the investigation of spirituality]. / A spiritualitás vizsgálhatóságának egy klinikai módszere.

The purpose of the Religion Psychology Department of the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Budapest, was to provide hospital care and cure for psychiatric patients belonging to different religions and spiritual movements. Modern psychiatric treatment integrates the three main dimensions of psychiatry: the biological, the sociotherapeutic and the psychotherapeutic. To this we have added a fourth field involving the spiritual life. The department was organized by therapeutic community principles. At the beginning our work was made almost impossible by an extreme confusion of worldviews and theological concepts which hindered clients' communication with each other as well as the work of sociotherapy and psychotherapy. Thus it became unavoidable to elaborate a common language and value system. This task was accomplished by searching for common denominators. We traced back most problems to two main factors. The first had to do with the essence of humanness, with the main driving force of the human personality. The second related to the final value system by which human actions are judged. We located the first factor in the human aspiration for development in both the inner and outer life and in the need for community. In our department mutual help, the promotion of development and usefulness for the community came to be regarded the standards of behavior. We used these standards as coordinates in our discussions. These made possible the work of psychotherapy as well as life in the therapeutic community.

Nonprescription medication use in patients with heart failure: assessment methods, utilization patterns, and discrepancies with medical records.

BACKGROUND: The use of over-the-counter products, herbals, and vitamins or supplements (collectively termed "nonprescription medications") is common among individuals with cardiovascular disease. We sought to determine patterns and predictors of nonprescription medication use and assessed whether different survey methodology may result in variable patient reporting of these products. METHODS AND RESULTS: We surveyed 161 patients with heart failure. The first 80 participants were provided a written survey to complete during their clinic appointment, and the next 80 age-matched participants met with study personnel for survey administration via face-to-face interview. Over-the-counter product use was reported by 88% of participants, whereas 34.8% took herbal supplements, and 65.2% took vitamins or supplements. Users of nonprescription medications were older, more likely to have an ischemic etiology, and concomitant chronic conditions. No differences in reporting were noted for patient versus provider-administered surveys. Discrepancies between survey and medical record data were common (40.4%), occurring most frequently with nonprescription aspirin, proton pump inhibitors, magnesium, and acetaminophen. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of study participants used nonprescription medications, and often did not report usage to health care providers. Patient education regarding importance of disclosure of nonprescription medications is crucial, as is consistent querying of use by heart failure providers.

Health-care professionals' documentation of wellbeing in patients following open heart surgery: a content analysis of medical records.

AIM: To explore health-care professionals' documentation of patient wellbeing in the first five months after open heart surgery. BACKGROUND: Open heart surgery (coronary artery bypass grafting or heart valve replacement) is an intervention aimed at relief of symptoms and increased wellbeing. It is a complex procedure with deep experiences encompassing physiological, psychological and social aspects. Health-care professionals' documentation of expressions of decreased wellbeing related to open heart surgery is an important basis for decisions and for the understanding of patients' overall health situation. METHOD: Eighty medical records were examined by means of qualitative and quantitative methods in order to explore documentation of patient wellbeing at four points in time. The analysis was performed by content analysis and descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Documentation of physical wellbeing was dominant on all occasions, while psychological wellbeing was moderately well documented and social aspects of wellbeing were rarely documented. CONCLUSION: The medical records did not adequately reflect the complexity of undergoing open heart surgery. Hence the holistic approach was not confirmed in health-care professionals' documentation. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Managers need to support and work for a patient-centred approach in cardiac care, resulting in patient documentation that reflects patient wellbeing as a whole.