physical design of the emergency department (ed) has an important effect on its role and function. to date, no guidelines have been introduced to set the standards for the construction of eds in iran. in this study we aim to devise an easy-to-use tool based on the available literature and expert opinion for the quick and effective assessment of eds in regards to their physical design. for this ...

Since the early 1960s, a number of instruments, reflecting a broad range of assessment methods, have been developed to assist in the evaluation of competency to stand trial. These instruments have taken various forms including checklists, self-report questionnaires, sentence-completion tasks, and interview-based instruments with and without criterion-based scoring. This article reviews these as...

Despite the relatively slow start in treating diagnostic error as an amenable research topic at the beginning of the patient safety movement, interest has steadily increased over the past few years in the form of solicitations for research, regularly scheduled conferences, an expanding literature and even a new professional society. Yet improving diagnostic performance increasingly is recognise...

The rapid evolution and adoption of mobile devices raise new usability challenges, given their limitations (in screen size, battery life, etc.) as well as the specific requirements of this new interaction. Traditional evaluation techniques need to be adapted in order for these requirements to be met. Heuristic evaluation (HE), an Inspection Method based on evaluation conducted by experts over a...

Checklists to guide critical procedures are becoming an increasingly important part of medical practice. These tools have proved effective in improving outcome in a variety of medical settings, including obstetrics. In this review, we outline essential principles of successful checklist creation and implementation and review our experience with checklist development in a worldwide, multi-instit...

PURPOSE Checklists are increasingly being used by surgical teams in the perioperative period to improve clinical care and increase patient safety. In this article, we review some of the mechanisms by which checklists work and evaluate evidence supporting their use. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS There is a growing body of evidence showing the importance of team-based checklists in clinical care. In multi...

BACKGROUND In health inequalities research there is a growing impetus to examine the development of inequalities in health over time. However, many of the sources of longitudinal data in Britain are not designed specifically for health research. Typically, health status is assessed by self-reported problems and the use of symptom checklists. METHODS The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) i...

A free online tool that visualizes the design of animal experiments and gives critical feedback could save scientists from embarking on poorly designed research, the software's developers hope. Over the past few years, researchers have picked out numerous flaws in the design and reporting of published animal experiments, which, they warn, could lead to bias. In response, hundreds of journals ha...

Participation in patient safety is one concrete expression of a foundational principle of medical ethics: do no harm. Being an ethical professional requires taking action to prevent harm to patients in health care environments. Checklists and time-outs have become common patient safety tools in the US and other nations. While their use can support ethical practice, recent research has revealed ...