BACKGROUND The Emergency Medical Communication Centre (EMCC) operators in Norway report using the Norwegian Index for Medical Emergency Assistance (Index), a criteria-based dispatch guideline, in about 75 % of medical emergency calls. The main purpose of a dispatch guideline is to assist the operator in securing a correct response as quickly as possible. The effect of using the guideline on EMC...

Inappropriate seizure management may result in high morbidity and mortality. We assessed the adherence of health professionals in southern Rwanda to a national protocol for pharmacological management of seizures in children. A questionnaire featuring a 5-year-old child with generalized prolonged seizures was administered. The questions focused on the choice of initial treatment and the sequence...

Adherence to medication is one of the most significant challenges of secondary prevention in patients after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Indeed, it has been well established that higher adherence is associated with better cardiovascular outcomes. Research pertaining to secondary prevention after AMI treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) focuses mainly on the adherence t...

BACKGROUND Guideline adherence in physical therapy is far from optimal, which has consequences for the effectiveness and efficiency of physical therapy care. Programmes to enhance guideline adherence have, so far, been relatively ineffective. We systematically developed a theory-based Quality Improvement in Physical Therapy (QUIP) programme aimed at the individual performance level (practicing ...

OBJECTIVE Little is known about the guideline adherence of nurses to chemotherapy administration guidelines. We determined the guideline adherence of nurses to the Chemotherapy Administration Safety Standards and the relationship between demographic characteristics and guideline adherence. METHODS Survey sheets containing two questions on demographic characteristics and 16 questions on the gu...

A gap between guidelines or protocols and clinical practice often exists, which may result in patients not receiving appropriate care. Therefore, the objectives of this systematic review were (1) to give an overview of professionals' adherence to (inter)national guidelines and protocols in the emergency medical dispatch, prehospital and emergency department (ED) settings, and (2) to explore whi...

BACKGROUND The primary objective of this pilot study was to demonstrate reliable adherence to a group cognitive behavioral (CBT) therapy protocol when delivered using on-line video conferencing as compared with face-to-face delivery of group CBT. A secondary aim was to show comparability of changes in subject depression inventory scores between on-line and face-to-face delivery of group CBT. ...

BACKGROUND Evidence-based practice has become a major issue in physical therapy. Many evidence-based guidelines, however, are not used extensively after dissemination, and interventions aimed at increasing guideline adherence often have limited effects. OBJECTIVE As a prerequisite for changing this situation, the aims of this study were to gain an in-depth understanding of the determinants of...

BACKGROUND The link between guideline adherence and outcomes is a highly demanded issue in diabetes care. We aimed to assess the adherence to guidelines and its impact on hospitalization using a simple set of performance measures among patients with diabetes. METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study, using health care claims data for adult patients with treated diabetes (2011-2013). ...

BACKGROUND The Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) was developed to timely recognise clinically deteriorating hospitalised patients. However, the ability of the MEWS in predicting serious adverse events (SAEs) in a general hospital population has not been examined prospectively. The aims were to (1) analyse protocol adherence to a MEWS protocol in a real-life setting and (2) to determine the pr...