The physician private practice arena has evolved from the days of the single family practitioner delivering house calls to one where options such as an affiliation of independent practitioners to purchase supplies or the integration of multi-specialty medical groups and hospitals into regional health systems are available. The transition to these sophisticated systems for the delivery of medica...

BACKGROUND We report a patient-centered intervention study in 9 municipalities of rural Nicaragua aiming at a reduction of internalized social stigma in new AFB positive tuberculosis (TB) patients diagnosed between March 2004 and July 2005. METHODS Five out of 9 municipal teams were coached to tailor and introduce patient-centered package. New TB patients were assigned to the intervention gro...

OBJECTIVE To understand the meaning of home visits by neonatal nurses for mothers of premature babies. METHODOLOGY A qualitative study was conducted with 21 mothers of families participating in a project that supported families of premature infants, born at a university hospital in the city of Londrina, Brazil. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured individual interviews, using...

extract today home health care is implementing in many countries. in iran, because of increasing population growth and hospital investments, home health care is not avoidable. home health care not only causes decreasing length of hospitalization and rapid offloading of hospital's beds for the use of other patients, but also presenting direct health services in home based on individual need...

In this short report, I discuss the way in which an assumption at the outset of a longitudinal study on HIV-positive mothers has been challenged three years into the study. The assumption concerns the employment status of the participants. The Kgolo Mmogo project is investigating the resilience factors in mothers (n=440) and children (n=440) who are dealing with the affect and effects of HIV&AI...

BACKGROUND Adherence is crucial for public health program effectiveness, though the benefits of increasing adherence must ultimately be weighed against the associated costs. We sought to determine the relationship between investment in community health worker (CHW) home visits and increased attendance at cervical cancer screening appointments in Cape Town, South Africa. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the influence of the remuneration system, municipality, doctor, and patient characteristics on general practitioners' choices between surgery and home visits. DESIGN Prospective registration of patient contacts during one week for 116 general practitioners (GPs). SETTING General practice in rural areas of northern Norway. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Type of GP visit (surgery ...

OBJECTIVES To establish the relative cost effectiveness of postnatal support in the community in addition to the usual care provided by community midwives. DESIGN Randomised controlled trial with six month follow up. SETTING Recruitment in a university teaching hospital and care provided in women's homes. PARTICIPANTS 623 postnatal women allocated at random to intervention (311) or contro...

OBJECTIVE The study provides a substantive description of infant and toddler play with everyday objects and independent negotiation of home space. METHOD A grounded theory approach was used to study 18 typically developing children longitudinally from ages 1 to 18 months. Data from 133 home visits included videotaped self-directed play sessions with usual objects, maternal interviews, and obs...