OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of healthcare team guidance in the implementation of a glycemic control protocol in the non-intensive care unit of a cardiology hospital. METHODS This was a randomized clinical trial comparing 9 months of intensive guidance by a healthcare team on a protocol for diabetes care (Intervention Group, n = 95) with 9 months of standard care (Control Group, n = ...

BACKGROUND Cancer often has a profound and enduring impact on sexuality, affecting both patients and their partners. Most healthcare professionals in cancer and palliative care are struggling to address intimate issues with the patients in their care. METHODS Study 1: An Australian study using semi-structured interviews and documentary data analysis. Study 2: Building on this Australian study...

The Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Intensive Care Society and the Resuscitation Council (UK) have published new resuscitation standards. The document provides advice to UK healthcare organisations, resuscitation committees and resuscitation officers on all aspects of the resuscitation service. It includes sections on resuscitation training, resuscitation eq...

BACKGROUND This paper describes an international nursing and health research immersion program. Minority students from the USA work with an international faculty mentor in teams conducting collaborative research. The Minority Health International Research Training (MHIRT) program students become catalysts in the conduct of cross-cultural research. AIM To narrow the healthcare gap for disadvan...

Setting up and running a Clinical Nutritional Support Team can be challenging and is time consuming. Team members have to be motivated, committed and persistent. High quality working relationships are fundamentally important within the team, between teams and with other healthcare professionals. Good communication, careful planning, sensitive implementation and robust monitoring are the corners...

OBJECTIVES To investigate how patients prefer to be addressed by healthcare providers and to assess their knowledge of their attending medical team's identity in an Australian Hospital. SETTING Single-centre, large tertiary hospital in Australia. PARTICIPANTS 300 inpatients were included in the survey. Patients were selected in a sequential, systematic and whole-ward manner. Participants we...

Despite a body of research on teams in other fields relatively little is known about measuring teamwork in healthcare. The aim of this study is to characterize the qualitative dimensions of team performance during cardiac resuscitation that results in good and bad outcomes. We studied each team's adherence to Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) protocol for ventricular fibrillation/tachycardia...

The demand for patient-centered care has reinforced the need for a systematic approach to planning appropriate psychosocial services. A proposed strategy to address this need is to use a multidisciplinary team comprised of oncology nurses, physicians, mental health professionals, social workers, ethicists, and other healthcare professionals to provide comprehensive psychosocial care to patients...

The aim of this case report was to describe a successful diabetic limb salvage procedure in the treatment of an infected diabetic foot ulcer through a multidisciplinary team approach and complex surgical reconstruction involving a femoral head bone allograft and musculocutaneous latissimus dorsi free flap. The decision to proceed with aggressive staged efforts at diabetic limb salvage should be...