SINCE 1962 all patients admitted to a large general hospital in Northern Ireland have been invited to write comments about their stay in hospital. For this purpose a blank letter card is enclosed in the hospital handbook which is distributed to all in-patients. Some hundreds of these cards have been returned and studied but although many of the comments were found to be useful, it was thought t...

Telecare has become an increasingly common medical service in recent years. However, new service must be close to the market and be market-driven to have a high likelihood of success. This article analyzes the business model of a telecardiology service managed by a general hospital. The methodology of the article is as follows: (1) initially it describes the elements of the service based on the...

The objectives of the present study was to evaluate the leadership of nurses by using the coaching strategy as a managerial tool, and identify, measure and analyze the acquisition of competencies from the view of nurse-coaches. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional, exploratory and field study that was performed using a quantitative approach. Situational Leadership was selected as the theoreti...

The outcome of any system of evaluation has a considerable impact on the daily lives of students in a variety of educational settings. Hence, it was attempted to illustrate the complexity of the problem •when evaluating the performance skills of first year students in the clinical environmenta of the general hospital. The choice of the research field originated from the increasing concern of th...

Working as a nurse involves great dedication and sacrifice: working night shifts, working overtime, and coming to work sick. The last is also known as presenteeism. Research has shown that poor nurse performance can affect both caregiver's and patient's safety. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate whether nurse presenteeism affected patient safety culture and to look deeper ...

A regional telephone pacemaker follow-up service has been established in the west of Scotland. Medical care is provided by clinics at district general hospitals in Ayrshire, and the pacemaker signals are transmitted by telephone from these clinics to a pacemaker centre in Glasgow. The success of the pilot project in Ayrshire will allow expansion of the service to include hospitals in other area...

A late or missed notification of pathology results could be disastrous for the patient as well as for the medical staff and the institution involved. In this article, the authors describe a systemic intervention implemented and led by nurses to enhance the safety and the efficiency of the notification process. The two-fold intervention includes patient and medical staff education along with dev...

Qualification as a bachelor of medicine and surgery (MB BS or equivalent) after five or six years is not the end but a beginning. Now at last you can learn all the time by doing, a process which continues throughout life: now you are a medical practitioner and can earn your own living. Examinations are not finished and uncertainties about the future are no longer speculations but realities, but...