The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of community Mental Health Departments in Lombardy (Italy), and analyse the eventual differences in outcome produced by different packages of care. The survey was conducted in 2000 on 4,712 patients treated in ten Mental Health Departments. Patients were assessed at least twice in a year with HoNOS (Health of the Nation Outcome Scales). Dat...

UNLABELLED Early intervention is assumed to improve outcome in first-episode psychosis, but this has not been proven. OBJECTIVE To study whether 1-year outcome will be better in a health care sector with early detection (ED) of psychosis compared with sectors with no early detection (no-ED). DESIGN A quasi-experimental study with ED in 2 experimental sectors and no-ED in 2 control sectors. ...

BACKGROUND In a primary health-care centre (PHCC) situated in a segregated area with low socio-economic status, 'primary care triage' has increased efficiency and accessibility. In the primary-care triage, the nurse sorts the patient to the appropriate PHCC profession according to described symptoms. Aim The aim of this study was to examine the patients' experience of being triaged directly to ...

Background Training courses in integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) have been conducted for health workers for nearly one and half decades in Afghanistan. The objective of the training courses is to improve quality of care in terms of health workers communication skills and clinical performance when they provide health services for under-5 children in public healthcare facili...

introduction: hospitals performance indicators will help monitoring, evaluation and decision making and therefore must be selected and ranked accurately. the aim of present study is identifying and selecting key hospitals performance indicators. materials and methods: this is a descriptive and mixed (quantitative-qualitative) study. literature review and expert panel has been done to identify a...

OBJECTIVE To analyze work organization in psychosocial healthcare services from the logic of the service management field. METHODS Organizational analysis was performed, using a case study in a psychosocial healthcare service located in the city of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, between 2006 and 2007. A total of five sources of information were analyzed: Ministério da Saúde (Brazilian Minist...

Based on previous findings of impaired eye and arm motor control after mild closed head injury (CHI), this study examined whether early eye and arm motor function, and the level of post-injury cerebral dysfunction manifested in motor control, relates systematically to recovery at 3 and 6 months after mild CHI. At 1 week post-injury, we assessed oculomotor function, upper-limb visuomotor perform...

PURPOSE The interdependence of behavioral and somatic aspects of various health conditions warrants greater emphasis on an integrated care approach. THEORY We propose that integrated approaches to health and wellness require comprehensive and empirically-valid outcome measures to assess quality of care. METHOD We discuss the transition from independent to integrated treatment approaches and...

The Island County Environmental Health Initiative (ICEHI) is a demonstration project in the use of the Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health (PACE EH) to build capacity in the 10 essential services of environmental health. The PACE EH methodology systematically applies the 10 essential services of environmental health through the completion of 13 tasks derived from...

The introduction of the German mandatory long-term care insurance in 1995 has led to major changes in the delivery of medical services in nursing homes. This is a result of the assessment process, the demographic changes, modified access to facilities and the changing socioeconomic resources of informal caregivers. The fusion of the health care and long-term care insurance system is now being p...