PURPOSE Communication between specialists and primary care clinicians is suboptimal, and access to referrals is often limited, which can lead to lower quality, inefficiency, and errors. An electronic consultation (e-consultation) is an asynchronous, non-face-to-face consultation between a primary care clinician and a specialist using a secure electronic communication platform. The purpose of th...

Health reform requires safety net settings to transform care delivery, but how they will innovate in order to achieve this transformation is unknown. Two series of key informant interviews (N = 28) were conducted in 2012 with leadership from both California's public hospital systems and community health centers. Interviews focused on how innovation was conceptualized and solicited examples of s...

Encouragement of Patient Self-management and Adherence through Use of a Computerized Tracking System for Cervical and Colon Cancer Screening Despite high rates of Papanicolaou smear (Pap) screening in the United States (more than 90%), nonadherence to follow-up recommendations is common, ranging from below 10% to more than 40%. Ensuring completion of appropriate follow-up of abnormal Paps can b...

Title: Metabolic control in a nationally representative diabetic elderly sample in Costa Rica: patients at community health centers vs. patients at other health care settings.

CONTEXT Despite evidence that a variety of continuing medical education (CME) techniques can foster physician behavioral change, there have been no randomized trials comparing performance outcomes for physicians participating in Internet-based CME with physicians participating in a live CME intervention using approaches documented to be effective. OBJECTIVE To determine if Internet-based CME ...

To effectively attenuate cancer disparities in multiethnic, medically underserved populations, interventions must be developed collaboratively through solid community-academic partnerships and driven by community-based participatory research (CBPR). The Tampa Bay Community Cancer Network (TBCCN) has been created to identify and implement interventions to address local cancer disparities in part...

OBJECTIVE To identify policies that increase access to health care for undocumented Mexican immigrants. MATERIALS AND METHODS Four focus groups (n=34 participants) were conducted with uninsured Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles, California. The feasibility and desirability of different policy proposals for increasing access were discussed by each group. RESULTS Respondents raised significan...

BACKGROUND With the objective of the national health services systems reform to move care to the community, community health services (CHS) are becoming the gateways of the health system in China. This study aims to evaluate the levels and distributions of the responsiveness of CHS in urban China and identify the relevant features to provide the government with policy advice on the improvement ...

BACKGROUND LGBT community organizations in the United States have been providing health services since at least the 1970s. However, available explanations for the origins of LGBT health services do not sufficiently explain why health in particular has been so closely and consistently linked to LGBT activism. Little is also known regarding how LGBT health services may have evolved over time with...