Ranking the relative importance of COVID-19 vaccination strategies in Canada: a priority-setting exercise.

BACKGROUND: When vaccine supplies are anticipated to be limited, necessitating the vaccination of certain groups earlier than others, the assessment of values and preferences of stakeholders is an important component of an ethically sound vaccine prioritization framework. The objective of this study was to conduct a priority-setting exercise to establish an expert stakeholder perspective on the relative importance of COVID-19 vaccination strategies in Canada. METHODS: The priority-setting exercise included a survey of stakeholders that was conducted from July 22 to Aug. 14, 2020. Stakeholders included clinical and public health expert groups, provincial and territorial committees and national Indigenous groups, patient and community advocacy representatives and experts, health professional associations and federal government departments. Survey results were analyzed to identify trends. RESULTS: Of 155 stakeholders contacted, 76 surveys were received for a participation rate of 49%. During a period of anticipated initial vaccine scarcity for all pandemic scenarios, stakeholders generally considered the most important vaccination strategy to be protecting those who are most vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID-19. This was followed in importance by strategies to protect health care capacity, minimize transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and protect critical infrastructure. INTERPRETATION: This priority-setting exercise established that there is general alignment in the values and preferences across stakeholder groups: the most important vaccination strategy at the time of limited initial vaccine availability is to protect those who are most vulnerable. The findings of this priority-setting exercise provided a timely expert perspective to guide early public health planning for COVID-19 vaccines.

Billing, coding, and practice management: a primer for today's reproductive medicine professional.

Despite years of recognition that many physicians are woefully unprepared to face challenges regarding the business of medicine, marginal progress has been made. In this piece, we aim to provide the contemporary reproductive medicine physician with an understanding of billing, coding, and, most importantly, cost containment for a typical fertility practice. It is critical for modern practices to not forego hard-earned revenue to insurance companies or not be aware of critical rules and regulations. While running a successful fertility practice requires good medical care, a profitable practice is necessary for overall long-term success. This article provides a brief history of medical insurance and billing, explains the process of updating billing codes, and reviews the revenue cycle, cost containment, and contract negotiations with insurance companies.

Does diversity go beyond sex and gender? Gender as social category of diversity training in health profession education - a scoping review.

Background: Sex and gender are social categories of diversity. Diversity can be perceived with an intersectional framework as it demonstrates the intersecting categories that might contribute to oppression, inequality, power and privilege. This article focused on what aspects were considered in diversity training programmes for health professions and the role of sex/gender in this context. Method: This scoping review focuses on the social categories mentioned in diversity education of health professionals. Articles on diversity training for health professionals were searched for in the Web of Science database using the keywords gender, diversity, training, education and health professions. Twelve articles were finally included in this review. Thematic analysis was employed to summarise information deduced from articles. Findings: Gaps in the aspects included in diversity training were identified. Findings show that culture was mostly discussed, whereas sex/gender and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) were focused on only to a minor extent. Cultural diversity training includes self-reflection on one's own culture, whereas a comparable tool for sex/gender and LGBTQI is missing. Additionally, other social categories of diversity, such as disability or age, are largely absent. Conclusion: Diversity should be incorporated in its full breadth in health profession education and not fragmented. Additionally, other social categories such as gender might benefit from including self-reflection on these categories in addition to reflecting on the role of power and privilege in order to increase self-awareness for diversity. In this way, othering of the population might be prevented and healthcare can be improved for all.

"Getting Out of That Siloed Mentality Early": Interprofessional Learning in a Longitudinal Placement for Early Medical Students.

PURPOSE: Although descriptions of interprofessional education often focus on interactions among students from multiple professions, embedding students from 1 profession in clinical settings may also provide rich opportunities for interprofessional learning (IPL). This study examines affordances and barriers to medical students' interactions with and opportunities to learn from health care professionals while learning health systems science in clinical workplaces. METHOD: In May 2017, 14 first-year medical students at the University of California, San Francisco participated in a semistructured interview about IPL experiences during a 17-month, weekly half-day clinical microsystem placement focused on systems improvement (SI) projects and clinical skills. Communities of practice and workplace learning frameworks informed the interview guide. The authors analyzed interview transcripts using conventional qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The authors found much variation among the 14 students' interprofessional interactions and experiences in 12 placement sites (7 outpatient, 4 inpatient, 1 emergency department). Factors influencing the depth of interprofessional interactions included the nature of the SI project, clinical workflow, student and staff schedules, workplace culture, and faculty coach facilitation of interprofessional interactions. Although all students endorsed the value of learning about and from diverse health care professionals, they were reluctant to engage with, or "burden," them. CONCLUSIONS: There are significant IPL opportunities for early medical students in longitudinal placements focused on SI and clinical skills. Formal curricular activities, SI projects conducive to interprofessional interactions, and faculty development can enhance the quality of workplace-based IPL.

Perspectivas profissionais e motivações de estudantes de Medicina para atuação na Estratégia Saúde da Família / Professional perspectives and motivations of Medicine students to work with Family Health Strategy / Perspectivas profesionales y motivaciones de estudiantes de Medicina para actuación en la Estrategia Salud de la Familia

Este estudo objetiva caracterizar aspectos motivacionais de futuros médicos relativos às perspectivas profissionais e atuação na Estratégia Saúde da Família (ESF) e as estratégias indutoras do projeto político-pedagógico (PPP) dos cursos. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo-exploratório, de abordagem qualitativa, com 31 estudantes de Medicina de duas instituições de ensino. Os dados foram coletados a partir da análise dos PPPs e de entrevista. O material empírico foi analisado pela técnica de análise de conteúdo, à luz do referencial da Teoria da Autodeterminação. Emergiram três categorias analíticas: motivação intrínseca, motivação extrínseca e desmotivação. Os resultados demonstraram a ESF como oportunidade de trabalho temporário, com ideologia que cativa os acadêmicos, mas a ação das forças motivadoras extrínsecas resulta na não escolha da área para carreira. É fundamental explorar, nos estudantes, o potencial motivacional intrínseco, desenvolvendo estratégias para romper barreiras que limitam a escolha pela ESF.(AU)

This study aims at describing the motivational aspects of future doctors as to their professional perspectives of working in Family Health Strategy (ESF) and the inducing strategies of the course's Political and Pedagogical Project (PPP). This descriptive and exploratory study of qualitative approach was conducted with 31 Medicine students of two education institutions. Data were collected based on the PPP analysis and through interview. The empirical material was reviewed using the content analysis technique based on the Self-determination Theory. Three analytical categories emerged: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and demotivation. The results showed ESF is a temporary job opportunity with an ideology that captivates academics. However, extrinsic motivations end up forcing students not to choose the area as a career. It is essential to explore the intrinsic motivational potential of students developing strategies to overcome barriers that limit choosing ESF as a career path.(AU)

El objetivo de este estudio es caracterizar aspectos motivacionales de futuros médicos relativos a las perspectivas profesionales y actuación en la Estrategia Salud de la Familia (ESF) y las estrategias inductores del Proyecto Político Pedagógico (PPP) de los cursos. Estudio descriptivo-exploratorio, de abordaje cualitativo, con 31 estudiantes de Medicina de dos instituciones de enseñanza. Los datos se colectaron a partir del análisis de los PPP y por entrevista. El material empírico se analizó por la técnica de análisis de contenido, a la luz del referencial de la Teoría de la Autodeterminación. Surgieron tres categorías analíticas: motivación intrínseca, motivación extrínseca y desmotivación. Los resultados demostraron la ESF como oportunidad de trabajo temporal con ideología que cautiva a los académicos, pero la acción de las fuerzas motivadoras extrínsecas resulta en la no elección del área para carrera. Es fundamental explorar, en los estudiantes, el potencial motivacional intrínseco, desarrollando estrategias para romper barreras que limitan la elección por la ESF.(AU)

Feminisation of the health workforce and wage conditions of health professions: an exploratory analysis.

BACKGROUND: The feminisation of the global health workforce presents a unique challenge for human resource policy and health sector reform which requires an explicit gender focus. Relatively little is known about changes in the gender composition of the health workforce and its impact on drivers of global health workforce dynamics such as wage conditions. In this article, we use a gender analysis to explore if the feminisation of the global health workforce leads to a deterioration of wage conditions in health. METHODS: We performed an exploratory, time series analysis of gender disaggregated WageIndicator data. We explored global gender trends, wage gaps and wage conditions over time in selected health occupations. We analysed a sample of 25 countries over 9 years between 2006 and 2014, containing data from 970,894 individuals, with 79,633 participants working in health occupations (48,282 of which reported wage data). We reported by year, country income level and health occupation grouping. RESULTS: The health workforce is feminising, particularly in lower- and upper-middle-income countries. This was associated with a wage gap for women of 26 to 36% less than men, which increased over time. In lower- and upper-middle-income countries, an increasing proportion of women in the health workforce was associated with an increasing gender wage gap and decreasing wage conditions. The gender wage gap was pronounced in both clinical and allied health professions and over lower-middle-, upper-middle- and high-income countries, although the largest gender wage gaps were seen in allied healthcare occupations in lower-middle-income countries. CONCLUSION: These results, if a true reflection of the global health workforce, have significant implications for health policy and planning and highlight tensions between current, purely economic, framing of health workforce dynamics and the need for more extensive gender analysis. They also highlight the value of a more nuanced approach to health workforce planning that is gender sensitive, specific to countries' levels of development, and considers specific health occupations.

Cost evaluations in health professions education: a systematic review of methods and reporting quality.

CONTEXT: High-quality research into education costs can inform better decision making. Improvements to cost research can be guided by information about the research questions, methods and reporting of studies evaluating costs in health professions education (HPE). Our objective was to appraise the overall state of the field and evaluate temporal trends in the methods and reporting quality of cost evaluations in HPE research. METHODS: We searched the MEDLINE, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), EMBASE, Business Source Complete and ERIC (Education Resources Information Centre) databases on 31 July 2017. To evaluate trends over time, we sampled research reports at 5-year intervals (2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016). All original research studies in HPE that reported a cost outcome were included. The Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) and the BMJ economic checklist were used to appraise methodological and reporting quality, respectively. Trends in quality over time were analysed. RESULTS: A total of 78 studies were included, of which 16 were published in 2001, 15 in 2006, 20 in 2011 and 27 in 2016. The region most commonly represented was the USA (n = 43). The profession most commonly referred to was that of the physician (n = 46). The mean ± standard deviation (SD) MERSQI score was 10.9 ± 2.6 out of 18, with no significant change over time (p = 0.55). The mean ± SD BMJ score was 13.5 ± 7.1 out of 35, with no significant change over time (p = 0.39). A total of 49 (63%) studies stated a cost-related research question, 23 (29%) stated the type of cost evaluation used, and 31 (40%) described the method of estimating resource quantities and unit costs. A total of 16 studies compared two or more interventions and reported both cost and learning outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The absolute number of cost evaluations in HPE is increasing. However, there are shortcomings in the quality of methodology and reporting, and these are not improving over time.

Metacognitive changes and sources of confidence judgements in health professions classroom learning.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to examine sources of confidence during learning to better understand metacognition and if a metacognitive intervention improves student metacognition or assessment performance. METHODS: One-hundred fifty-eight doctor of pharmacy students participated in a semester-long intervention that included ratings of confidence as well as sources of their confidence judgments. Throughout the semester, students made metacognitive judgements on selected topics within the course. Students also completed a pre- and post-assessment which was used to examine changes in performance and metacognitive accuracy over time. RESULTS: Most students appeared to anchor their confidence (i.e. judgments of learning) on prior knowledge, particularly at the beginning of the course. Students' performance and judgements of learning (confidence) increased over the semester, but the gains in both were dependent on topic. Making metacognitive judgements on selected topics did not appear to help or hinder assessment performance or improve metacognitive accuracy for most topics. CONCLUSIONS: Students may need assistance recognizing that their prior knowledge may not be adequate to judge their current learning. To improve their judgements of learning, students should utilize more external sources (e.g., the textbook) rather than internal cognitive resources. Instructional strategies should model the task and coach students to competency (i.e. scaffold).

Pedagogical training profile of basic health sciences faculty in biomedical and related fields at Brazilian public and private higher education institutions.

Historically, Brazilian higher education teachers' pedagogical training has not been a concern. Even today, a graduate degree is the main requirement to be a faculty member. However, a set of competencies is necessary to teach: pedagogical competency, political competency, and knowledge of specific content. Most graduate training covers only knowledge of specific content. Therefore, this work aimed to outline the profile of basic health sciences faculty members teaching in biomedical and related fields regarding their undergraduate and graduate training, as well as the initial and continued pedagogical training in Brazilian public and private higher education institutions (HEIs). An electronic questionnaire was sent to these professionals, and a total of 763 responses were analyzed (66.4% from public and 33.6% from private HEIs). Compared with private HEI faculty, faculty from public HEIs were more experienced in teaching, and more time had passed since they finished their graduate training. On the other hand, faculty from private HEIs had a more intense undergraduate teaching workload than faculty from public HEIs. Additionally, faculty from private HEIs attended more extensive and more frequent pedagogical training activities (PTAs). Both groups expressed that activities closely related to their classroom practice and recognition for good pedagogical performance were incentives for their participation in PTAs. In conclusion, differences between the faculty from public and private HEIs may be due to the characteristics of HEIs themselves. Hypothetically, private HEIs focus on teaching, which may explain why faculty from these institutions seek improvement in this area, whereas public HEIs focus on research.

Use of the Online Discussion Board in Health Professions Education: Contributions, Challenges, and Considerations.

Online discussion boards offer opportunities for individualized and interactive learning in higher education and are frequently used in health professions education. This article investigates the ways in which discussion board activities foster cognitive and affective domain learning among health professions students and contribute to the professional competencies that are required of emerging clinicians. In addition, pedagogical challenges, including the need to develop sophisticated interpersonal affective domain skills, promote problem-based learning, and prepare students for standardized examinations, are addressed. Considerations for practice, which include the importance of specific teaching strategies such as the shaping of student and instructor roles, scaffolding, and online debates and role-playing, are discussed.