BACKGROUND Postcode lotteries in health refer to differences in health care between different geographic areas. These have been previously associated with clinical services. However there has been little documentation of postcode lotteries relating to preventative health care services. This paper describes a postcode lottery effect in relation to the NHS Health Checks Programme (a national card...

BACKGROUND Hypertension (HT) is a major risk factor, and accessible and effective HT screening services are necessary. The effective coverage framework is an assessment tool that can be used to assess health service performance by considering target population who need and receive quality service. The aim of this study is to measure effective coverage of hypertension screening services at the p...

Remote and rural regions in Canada are faced with unique challenges in the delivery of primary health services. The purpose of this study was to understand how patients and healthcare professionals in northern British Columbia might make use of the Internet to manage cardiovascular diseases. The study used a qualitative methodology. Eighteen health professionals and 6 patients were recruited fo...

The aim of this study was to stratify 305 elderly (> 65 years) treated at an academic health center (Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil) according to risk of repeated hospitalization. Data collection used an instrument to evaluate risk of repeated hospital admissions, including eight health indicators: self-rated health, hospitalizations, doctor visits, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, gender, social...

OBJECTIVE To measure the costs of a polypill strategy and compare them with those of usual care in people with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) or at similarly high cardiovascular risk. DESIGN A within-trial cost analysis of polypill-based care versus usual care with separate medications, using data from the Kanyini Guidelines Adherence with the Polypill (GAP) trial and linked health ...

OBJECTIVES Healthy People 2010: Understanding and Improving Health lists 6 areas of disparity in minority health services: infant mortality, cancer, cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and immunizations. This study compiles existing Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) health data to establish a baseline. METHODS For federally-sponsored research (1986-2000), the Computer Retriev...

BACKGROUND Health promotion is now becoming an integral part of community pharmacy practice worldwide. OBJECTIVES This study was intended to determine the level of involvement of community pharmacists in providing health promotion service and to identify the barriers to the practice. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted on 48 community pharmacists working in Gondar town, Northwest ...

Swetha P. Karturi, MD, Hjalti Gudmundsson, MD, Masood Akhtar, MD, Arshad Jahangir, MD, Indrajit Choudhuri, MD From the Gundersen-Lutheran Health, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Aurora Cardiovascular Services, Aurora Sinai/Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Centers, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Center for Integrative Research on Cardiovascular Aging (CIRC...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been associated with many types of comorbidity. We aimed to quantify the real world impact of COPD on lower respiratory tract infection, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, psychiatric disease, musculoskeletal disease and cancer, and their impact on COPD through health services. A population study using health administrative data from Ontario, Cana...

t is self-evident that patients expect high quality of the services they receive. For this reason, procedural-based medical (therapeutic) services have long been subject to some form of quality assessment. In the same vein, it is also appropriate that similar expectations have recently come about for cardiovascular (CV) imaging (diagnostic) services. In this report, we provide the background of...