With the increasing emphasis on minimum competency testing has come a corresponding increase in mandated, district-wide testing programs. Results of such testing are oftn highly publicized, though perhaps not always completely understood. Yet, even though mandated tests have become an integral part of schooling in many areas of this country, we know little about specific testing practices. A CO...

BACKGROUND Posthumous organ procurement is hindered by the consenting process. Several consenting systems have been proposed. There is limited information on public relative attitudes towards various consenting systems, especially in Middle Eastern/Islamic countries. METHODS We surveyed 698 Saudi Adults attending outpatient clinics at a tertiary care hospital. Preference and perception of nor...

BACKGROUND In China, there was a pressing need to establish a governmental agency to oversee the organizations that provide public health and medical services. The Chinese Health Inspection Authority (HIA), a relatively independent organization functioning at each administrative level (provincial, municipal, and county), was mandated to conduct 11 health inspection functions to maintain efficie...

In the early 1970s, mandatory kidney disease screening was started with urinalysis in the Japanese health examination program for all workers and school-age children. In 1983, nationwide urinalysis screening in adults aged > or = 40 yr was mandated in the community-based health examination program. Because glomerulonephritis was an endemic disease and the leading cause of end-stage renal diseas...

Medical image security is an important issue when digital images and their pertinent patient information are transmitted across public networks. Mandates for ensuring health data security have been issued by the federal government such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), where healthcare institutions are obliged to take appropriate measures to ensure that patient inf...

H ow are we to encourage the expansion of occupational therapy education and ca­ reers? With a national salary advan­ tage for occupational therapists with master's degrees averaging only $2,000, what incentive is there for oc­ cupational therapists to expand their expertise? First, there is the cognitive stimulation and the satisfaction of self-actualization that comes with the expansion of ed...

CONTEXT Recent legislative efforts to implement mandated parental involvement for minor adolescents seeking family planning services threaten the rights of adolescents younger than 18 to access reproductive health care. METHODS State and federal laws and policies pertaining to minor adolescents' rights to access services for contraception and sexually transmitted diseases are reviewed, and re...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether nurse staffing in California hospitals, where state-mandated minimum nurse-to-patient ratios are in effect, differs from two states without legislation and whether those differences are associated with nurse and patient outcomes. DATA SOURCES Primary survey data from 22,336 hospital staff nurses in California, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey in 2006 and state hosp...