CONTEXT The Closing the Quality Gap series from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality summarizes evidence for eight high-priority health care topics: outcomes used in disability research, bundled payment programs, public reporting initiatives, health care disparities, palliative care, the patient-centered medical home, prevention of health care-associated infections, and medication adh...

Executive Summary Introduction Definition and Models of Home Care General Goals of Home Care Establishing the Need for Home Care Services Medical Diagnoses and Therapies Commonly Requiring Home Care Guidelines for Referral for Home Care Needs of Respiratory Home Care Patients Skills and Competencies Expected of Home Care Providers Episodic Home Health Hospice Home Medical Equipment Companies Ch...

Ambulatory nursing care can be difficult to comprehend in all its complexity. In August 2013, the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing commissioned a task force to identify nursing-sensitive indicators specific to ambulatory care settings. Given the great variation in settings, staff mix, patient populations, role dimensions, skill sets, documentation systems, and resources, determining ...

OBJECTIVES To compare demographic, social, medical, and health care characteristics of home care clients in the last year of life by quintile of deprivation and examine associations between material deprivation and service characteristics. METHOD This retrospective study used administrative data for 700 clients who died while receiving home care services. Outcome measures were the receipt of ...

The ambulatory care setting is an increasingly important component of the patient safety conversation. Inpatient safety is the primary focus of the vast majority of safety research and interventions, but the ambulatory setting is actually where most medical care is administered. Recent attention has shifted toward examining ambulatory care in order to implement better health care quality and sa...

Long-term care, which includes nursing facilities and home health care, provides care to an increasing population of disabled, elderly persons with diabetes. Nursing facilities provide the majority of formal long-term care. Data from the Institutional Component of the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES-2) provide a profile of the demographics, health status, health care use, and nur...

A group of year 3 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in an Oncology and Palliative Care Course took part in a study designed to uncover if their subsequent learning had a positive impact upon their capacity to practise palliative care. All the participants reported that the course assisted them in the clinical provision of palliative care.

Over the past 30 years, palliative care services have developed in an ad-hoc way in Australia and around the world. Community expectations for palliative care have grown in recent years. As palliative care has evolved, the World Health Organization definition of palliative care has changed substantially. The changes challenge those who are involved in planning, funding and provision of services...

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that reduced antenatal care packages or prenatal care managed by providers other than obstetricians for low risk women can be as effective as standard models of antenatal care. OBJECTIVES The objective of this review was to assess the effects of antenatal care programmes for low-risk women. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Gr...

To determine whether adding telehealth technology to traditional home care services increases health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and home care satisfaction, and decreases resource utilization among home care patients. This trial included 37 home care patients receiving services in a Veterans Affairs medical center, randomized into intervention and control groups. Outcome measures included p...