BACKGROUND While effective engagement of patients and families in treatment is increasingly viewed as a priority for many healthcare systems, much remains to be learned about the nature and outcomes of approaches that seek to accomplish this goal in the acute care hospital setting. Wide variability in the implementation of practices designed to promote patient and family engagement in hospitals...

Background The sustainability of long-term care (LTC) is a prominent policy priority in many Western countries. LTC is one of the most pressing fiscal issues for the growing population of elderly people in the European Union (EU) Member States. Country recommendations regarding LTC are prominent under the EU’s European Semester.   Methods This paper examines challenges related to the financial-...

Testing of whole blood in miniaturized PCR is compromised by the opaque nature of whole blood that leads to physical masking of a fluorescent signal. We demonstrate a method to perform real-time PCR with whole blood that avoids interference from the opacity of whole blood.

Compassion is central to the purpose of medicine and the care of patients and their families. Compassionate healthcare begins with compassionate people, but cannot be consistently provided without systemic changes that enable clinicians and staff to collaborate and to care. We propose seven essential commitments to foster more compassionate healthcare organizations and systems: a commitment to ...

This paper discusses the needs for future education in quality assurance, assessment and improvement, particularly in relation to managed care. The pressures for increased education about quality are derived from different components of the health care system; e.g., regulatory and governmental agencies, purchasers of care, and competitors of health institutions. The content of future educatio...

Hospital-wide computerized information systems evolved from the need to capture patient information and perform billing and other financial functions. These systems, however, have fallen short of meeting the needs of respiratory care departments regarding work load assessment, productivity management, and the level of outcome reporting required to support programs such as patient-driven protoco...

Health care information systems have the potential to enable better care of patients in much the same manner as the widespread use of the automobile and telephone did in the early 20th century. The car and phone were rapidly accepted and embraced throughout the world when these breakthroughs occurred. However, the automation of health care with use of computerized information systems has not be...