INTRODUCTION Portions of Montgomery County, Virginia, are designated a Medically Underserved Area with a large portion of this population experiencing limited access to healthcare services. In September 2008, the Federal Bureau of Primary Care awarded the authors a planning grant to assess community need in Montgomery County and to develop a strategic plan to establish a Federally Qualified Hea...

systems thinking is not a new concept to health system strengthening; however, one question remains unanswered: how policy-makers, system designers and consultants with a system thinking philosophy should act (have acted) as potential change agents in actually gaining opportunities to introduce systems thinking? development of comprehensive multi-year plans (cmyps) for immunization system is on...

BACKGROUND Increasing hospital costs and its social and cultural problems has led to the idea of providing healthcare services at home. Because of infrastructural and implementation problems, providing healthcare at home in Iran has not been initiated yet. Therefore, this study set out to elaborate the need for a comprehensive system in order to provide this service in Iran. METHODS All artic...

T he rising incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases is of major global concern (World Health Organization [WHO] 2002). Worldwide, the proportion of overall burden of disease from all causes attributable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental disorders is expected to increase from 36% in 1990 to 57% in 2020 (WHO 2002). The burden from NCDs, or chronic disease, exceeds that of commun...

In most cases, determining payer readiness for an ICD-10 transition involves traditional system testing. The results of this strategy, however, do not completely reflect the widespread impact of ICD-10 on a payer’s business operations. A nontraditional testing approach is also required to understand and address ICD-10’s comprehensive effects on a healthcare organization’s people, processes, par...

Policymakers no longer question that healthcare system reform will occur; rather they differ on the timing and direction of change. The Washington Business Group on Health envisions a future healthcare delivery system called an organized system of care (OSC). An OSC is an integrated financing and delivery system that uses a panel of providers selected on the basis of quality and cost management...

Pediatric femoral shaft fractures account for less than 2% of all fractures in children. However, these are the most common pediatric fractures necessitating hospitalization and are associated with prolonged hospital stay, prolonged immobilization and impose a significant burden on the healthcare system as well as caregivers. In this paper, the authors present a comprehensive review of epidemio...

Rapid changes in the healthcare system obligate Israeli nursing leaders to reassess current nursing roles and to identify new paradigms that are in line with the demanding needs of acute care settings. The challenge of engaging nurses to achieve the desired changes in nursing role performance and perception can be accomplished by defining a comprehensive organizational vision. The authors prese...