BACKGROUND Many patients with acute stroke do not receive recommended care in tertiary hospital settings. Allied health professionals have important roles within multidisciplinary stroke teams and influence the quality of care patients receive. Studies examining the role of allied health professionals in acute stroke management are scarce, and very little is known about the clinical decision ma...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To assess Malaysian nurses' perceived job satisfaction and to determine whether any association exists between job satisfaction and intention to leave current employment. BACKGROUND There is currently a shortage of qualified nurses, and healthcare organisations often face challenges in retaining trained nurses. Job satisfaction has been identified as a factor that influenc...

BACKGROUND Trauma resuscitation involves multidisciplinary teams under surgical leadership in most US trauma centers. Because many trauma centers have also incorporated emergency department (ED) physicians, shared and cross-disciplinary leadership structures often occur. Our study identifies leadership structures and examines the effects of cross-disciplinary leadership on trauma teamwork. ME...

Despite a recent increase in the attention given to improving end-of-life care, our understanding of what constitutes a good death is surprisingly lacking. The purpose of this study was to gather descriptions of the components of a good death from patients, families, and providers through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. Seventy-five participants-including physicians, nurses, so...

OBJECTIVE Clinical practice aims to respect patient autonomy by basing treatment decisions for incapacitated patients on their own preferences. Yet many patients do not complete an advance directive, and those who do frequently just designate a family member to make decisions for them. This finding raises the concern that clinical practice may be based on a mistaken understanding of patient pri...

PURPOSE Methods used to deliver and test a pharmacy-based asthma care telephonic service for an underserved, rural patient population are described. SUMMARY In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), the Patient And phaRmacist Telephonic Encounters (PARTE) project is assessing the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary impact of providing pharmacy-based asthma care service telephonically. T...

BACKGROUND In the US, an unacceptably high percentage of pregnant women do not undergo prenatal HIV testing. Previous studies have found increased uptake of prenatal HIV testing with abbreviated pre-test counseling, however little is known about patient decision making, testing satisfaction and knowledge in this setting. METHODOLOGY/FINDINGS A randomized-controlled, non-inferiority trial was ...

AIM This study aimed to determine the frequency and determinant factors of do not resuscitate (DNR) orders in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) at a university hospital in China. METHODS Data collected from June 2010 to December 2012 for patients with ICH were retrospectively reviewed. The characteristics and care of patients with and without DNR orders and those with early (≤24 h)...

Mohammed, North, and Ashton find that decentralization in Fiji shifted health-sector workloads from tertiary hospitals to peripheral health centres, but with little transfer of administrative authority from the centre. Decisionmaking in five functional areas analysed remains highly centralized. They surmise that the benefits of decentralization in terms of services and outcomes will be limited....

The title of this paper comes from an incident that occurred while I was participating in morning rounds on the pediatric and surgical intensive care unit of a large, midwest tertiary care center. The patient under discussion was an eight-week-old girl who had been born without kidneys, and who had been cared for on the unit for seven weeks. In the previous week, the baby's condition had gone s...