In the United States, home health care (HHC) is a rapidly growing industry and home infusion therapy is a rapidly growing market. HHC can present substantial occupational safety and health (OSH) risks. This article summarizes major OSH risks relevant to home infusion therapy by illustrating them through real-life scenarios collected systematically using qualitative research methods by the Natio...

Having just completed the writing of a history of the first 50 years of the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, I was interested in Dr Stephen Frankel's stimulating editorial in your December issue, especially so since it also has some relevance to the recent correspondence in the J7ournal of Public Health Medicine about health service research. My interest is because until the advent of the H...

Health services and health economics research articles commonly use multivariate regression techniques to measure the relationship of health service utilization and health outcomes (the outcomes of interest) with clinical characteristics, sociodemographic factors, and policy changes (usually treated as explanatory variables). Common regression methods measure differences in outcome variables be...

INTRODUCTION Allied health professionals (AHPs) report positive attitudes to using research evidence in clinical practice, yet often lack time, confidence and skills to use, participate in and conduct research. A range of multifaceted strategies including education, mentoring and guidance have been implemented to increase AHPs' use of and participation in research. Emerging evidence suggests th...

BACKGROUND There are calls for better application of theory in health services research. Research exploring knowledge translation and interprofessional collaboration are two examples, and in both areas, complexity theory has been identified as potentially useful. However, how best to conceptualize and operationalize complexity theory in health services research is uncertain. The purpose of this...

PURPOSE - The issue of offshore outsourcing of healthcare services is a critical but little-examined problem in healthcare research. The purpose of this study is to contribute to filling this void. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH A library-based study was carried out of the development of the Indian medical transcription offshoring industry. Findings- Cost-saving potential and the degree of outso...

Ethics committees now require that individuals give informed consent to much health services research, in the same way as for clinical research. This is misguided. Existing ethical guidelines do not help us decide how to seek consent in these cases, and have allowed managerial experimentation to remain largely unchecked. Inappropriate requirements for individual consent can institutionalise hea...

AS a clinical anesthesiologist and health services researcher, my goal is to improve patient outcomes both on an individual and a population level through direct patient care and research. In recent years, I have had the privilege of being involved in the development of numerous guidelines. Guidelines are a set of recommendations for patient management that identifies a specific or range of man...

The story of AHCPR's struggle with Congress to remain a federal agency is an example of the longer struggle health services research (HSR) has had to hold a priority in the federal budget. But from another perspective, the growth of HSR has been substantial, albeit an up-and-down experience. Its survival during the turbulent years of 1995-1996 is attributed to a fundamental restructuring of its...

Despite the consensus regarding community integration as a major goal of mental health policy and the emergence of supportive independent housing as a critical component of community mental health services, mental health services research has not examined the extent to which housing and service characteristics are associated with community integration of persons with psychiatric disabilities in...