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Developing a comprehensive interdisciplinary senior healthcare practice.

The PeaceHealth Senior Health and Wellness Center (SHWC) provides primary care coordinated by geriatricians and an interdisciplinary office practice team that addresses the multiple needs of geriatric patients. The SHWC is a hospital outpatient clinic operated as a component of an integrated health system and is focused on the care of frail elders with multiple interacting chronic conditions and management of chronic disease in the healthier older population. Based on the Chronic Care Model, the SHWC strives to enhance coordination and continuity along the continuum of care, including outpatient, inpatient, skilled nursing, long-term care, and home care services. During its development, a patient-centered approach was used to identify senior service needs. The model emphasizes team development, integration of evidence-based geriatric care, site-based care coordination, longer appointment times, "high touch" service qualities, utilization of an electronic medical record across care settings, and a prevention/wellness orientation. This collection of services addresses the interrelationships of all senior issues, including nutrition, social support, spiritual support, caregiver support, physical activity, medications, and chronic disease. The SHWC provides access in an environment sensitive to the special needs of seniors, with a staff trained to meet those needs. The SHWC business model attempts to improve access and quality of care to seniors in a mostly noncapitated healthcare setting, while also attempting to remain financially viable.

Aged↗

UVB phototherapy in an outpatient setting or at home: a pragmatic randomised single-blind trial designed to settle the discussion. The PLUTO study.

BACKGROUND: Home ultraviolet B (UVB) treatment is a much-debated treatment, especially with regard to effectiveness, safety and side effects. However, it is increasingly being prescribed, especially in the Netherlands. Despite ongoing discussions, no randomised research has been performed, and only two studies actually compare two groups of patients. Thus, firm evidence to support or discourage the use of home UVB phototherapy has not yet been obtained. This is the goal of the present study, the PLUTO study (Dutch acronym for "national trial on home UVB phototherapy for psoriasis"). METHODS: We designed a pragmatic randomised single-blind multi-centre trial. This trial is designed to evaluate the impact of home UVB treatment versus UVB phototherapy in a hospital outpatient clinic as to effectiveness, quality of life and cost-effectiveness. In total 196 patients with psoriasis who were clinically eligible for UVB phototherapy were included. Normally 85% of the patients treated with UVB show a relevant clinical response. With a power of 80% and a 0.05 significance level it will be possible to detect a reduction in effectiveness of 15%. Effectiveness will be determined by calculating differences in the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) and the Self Administered PASI (SAPASI) scores. Quality of life is measured using several validated generic questionnaires and a disease-specific questionnaire. Other outcome measures include costs, side effects, dosimetry, concomitant use of medication and patient satisfaction. Patients are followed throughout the therapy and for 12 months thereafter. The study is no longer recruiting patients, and is expected to report in 2006. DISCUSSION: In the field of home UVB phototherapy this trial is the first randomised parallel group study. As such, this trial addresses the weaknesses encountered in previous studies. The pragmatic design ensures that the results can be well generalised to the target population. Because, in addition to effectiveness, aspects such as quality of life and cost-effectiveness are also taken into consideration, this study will produce valuable evidence to either support or discourage prescription of home UVB phototherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current controlled trials/Nederlands Trial register: ISRCTN83025173. Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT00150930.

Adult↗

Employment status and differences in the one-year coverage of physician visits: different needs or unequal access to services?

BACKGROUND: The dichotomy employed vs. unemployed is still a relevant, but rather crude measure of status in current labour markets. Also, studies concerning the association of employment status with health have to specify the type of the employment as well as the characteristics of the unemployment. This study aims to reveal differences and potential inequalities in physician visits among seven groups in the core-periphery structures of the labour markets. METHODS: A total of 16,000 Finns responded to a postal survey in 2003. Their visits to physicians in public primary health care, occupational health care, private health services, hospital outpatient clinics and dental care services during previous year were measured as indicators of service utilisation. Participants were classified as employees having a permanent or fixed-term and full-time or part-time contract and as those experiencing short-term, prolonged or long-term unemployment. Differences in the one-year coverage of physician visits between these groups of employees were analysed using logistic regression analyses where differences in the need for services were controlled for by including demographics and self-rated health assessments in the models. RESULTS: Permanently employed respondents had visited a physician most often, and the need-adjusted regression models showed significantly lower odds ratios for a visit among fixed-term employees (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.53-0.81) and in particular among the long-term unemployed (OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.14-0.31). A stratified analysis according to health care sector showed the lowest odds ratios in occupational health care and private physicians (ORs between 0.05 and 0.73) and also low odds ratios for dentists (ORs between 0.45 and 0.91), whereas visits to public primary health care were more common among non-permanent employees and the unemployed (ORs between 1.46 and 2.39). CONCLUSION: The use of physician services varies according to labour market status, being relatively low among the non-permanently employed and the unemployed. This underuse is emphasised when clinical need is taken into account. The main reasons for the variance evidently lie in the structures of the Finnish health service system. The result may indicate non-optimal health care of the population on the periphery of the labour market, but it may also reflect the importance of employment status as a context for need and the decision to visit a physician.

Adult↗

Costing shared care.

Growing interest in shared health care schemes over the last decade has received additional impetus with the introduction of GP fund holding and the internal market in health care provision. Ken Buckingham and colleagues report on the relative costs of such a scheme for asthma in comparison with the costs of conventional outpatient care. Data was collected during a randomised controlled trial of shared or integrated care for patients with chronic asthma, who had been referred to a hospital outpatient clinic.

Asthma↗

Outpatient medical records--are they meeting your needs?

The healthcare market shift away from inpatient care has forced hospitals to examine their information processing for outpatient ambulatory care. Now, also in response to PPS, hospitals must focus their planning and marketing functions on ambulatory care.

Abstracting and Indexing↗