European health systems have increasingly come under pressure to implement cost-containment measures while simultaneously maintaining or even enhancing highquality health care. In the field of medication of minor ailments, a promising approach to achieve this is initiatives promoting patient involvement (i.e. self-care). Therefore, the aim of the study was to analyse potential costs and benefit...

CONTEXT Recent efforts to increase physical activity through changes to the built environment have led to strategies and programs that use existing public space, including bicycle lanes, temporary parks, and the ciclovia initiative (scheduled events in which streets are closed to motorized vehicles and opened for recreational activities) popularized in South America. OBJECTIVE This article de...

The literature about medical education faculty fellowship programs, which have grown in popularity, quantifies program characteristics, provides exemplars, and reports on delivery strategies. Evaluation is generally limited to satisfaction measures, with a few longitudinal studies of postprogram achievements, but none on the process of making these changes.The authors describe the development o...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The movement towards greater accountability in medicine has made quality improvement a routine part of daily clinical practice in the intensive care unit. We review recent advances in the field of quality improvement and discuss some of the challenges to successful quality improvement initiatives in critical care. RECENT FINDINGS Regular quality improvement is an essential c...