BACKGROUND Telephone working is an increasingly important way of managing general practice workload, particularly out of hours. The role of telephone triage, however, in managing acute consultations during the day has not been adequately researched. AIM To determine the impact of telephone triage, conducted by a practice nurse, on the management of same day consultations in a general practice...

Approval of a drug for clinical use requires production of data on efficacy and safety through submission of results from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), in which the new molecule is usually compared with placebo (or an active comparator) for a set of outcomes that will serve as the basis for the drug's indications. These indications are crucial, because drugs are approved on the basis of ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate self reported practice and actual practice of private pharmacy staff in relation to drug regulations and provision of prednisolone (a prescription-only corticosteroid) on request to treat lower back pain. METHOD Sixty private pharmacies in Hanoi were randomly selected. Self reported practice was assessed through interviews with pharmacy staff using a questionnaire; ac...

K. W. Grätz, Zürich C. Hämmerle, Zürich S. Hänni, Bern E. Hellwig, Freiburg C. Katsaros, Bern N. Kellerhoff, Bern J. T. Lambrecht, Basel K. Lädrach, Bern H. T. Lübbers, Zürich R. Männchen, Winterthur C. Marinello, Basel G. Menghini, Zürich R. Mericske-Stern, Bern A. Mombelli, Genève F. Müller, Genève K. Neuhaus, Bern I. Nitschke, Zürich C. Ramseier, Bern S. Ruf, Giessen G. Salvi, Bern M. Schätz...

This is a methodological research, which aimed at organizing the systematization of nursing assistance in a critical care unit. The following steps were carried out: description of the nursing practice; transcription of nursing diagnoses; elaboration of a protocol for nursing diagnosis based in International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP); determination of nursing prescriptions and ...

BACKGROUND There is considerable variability in the manner in which prescriptions are written by physicians and transcribed by pharmacists, resulting in patient misunderstanding of label instructions. A universal medication schedule was recently proposed for standardizing prescribing practices to 4 daily time intervals, thereby helping patients simplify and safely use complex prescription regim...

OBJECTIVE To describe the general public's understanding, acceptance and use of delayed antibiotics. DESIGN Face to face computer-assisted survey using an Ipsos MORI Capibus survey. SETTING Randomly selected households in England using multistage sampling. RESPONDENTS A representative sample of 1625 adults aged over 15 years and recruited from household visits in England, using age and ge...

A ten-year retrospective study of the consultations of 50 families with a city general practice was used to test the hypothesis that mothers who receive an excess of psychotropic drugs have children who receive an excess of antibiotics for episodes of acute respiratory illness. The children of the 10 mothers classed as high psychotropic users were seen twice as often with acute respiratory illn...

Medical provider consolidation’s impact on spending is an empirical question. On the one hand, consolidation may lead to the identification and dissemination of best practices and reductions in the use of unnecessary care, resulting in reduced spending. Alternatively, consolidation may allow outpatient practices and/or hospitals to gain bargaining power in negotiations with insurers, pushing up...

OBJECTIVE To describe a classification of errors and to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a method for recording staff reported errors in general practice. DESIGN An iterative process in a pilot practice was used to develop a classification of errors. This was incorporated in an anonymous self-report form which was then used to collect information on errors during June 2002. The acc...