Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 132 - 1 December 2016

Welcome to the fortnightly Health Improvement and Innovation Digest (HIID). The Digest has links to key evidence of interest, with access to new content arranged by topic.

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Have you heard about Grey Matter?

We'd like to introduce you to another newsletter that the Ministry of Health Library prepares.  The Grey Matter newsletter provides monthly access to a selection of recent NGO, Think Tank, and International Government reports related to health. Information is arranged by topic, allowing readers to quickly find their areas of interest.  You can use this link to subscribe to Grey Matter.

Article access

For articles that aren't open access, contact your DHB library, or organisational or local library for assistance in accessing the full text. If your organisation has a subscription, you may be able to use the icon under full text links in PubMed to access the full article.

Shorter Stays In Emergency Departments (International)

Emergency Department crowding and hospital bed shortage: is Lean a smart answer? A systematic review
Emergency Departments (EDs) worldwide face the challenges of crowding, waiting times, and cost containment. This review, published in the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, aims to provide a synthesis of the current literature focused on how Lean Thinking Principles and tools can be applied in an ED to address overcrowding and hospital admissions.

Analysing the emergency department patient journey: Discovery of bottlenecks to emergency department patient flow
Despite significant workflow reform to comply with the federally mandated National Emergency Access Target (NEAT), Australian public hospitals continue to face significant barriers in achieving good ED patient flow. This study, published in Emergency Medicine Australasia, was undertaken to identify and analyse the impact of individual waypoints on an ED patient's journey and identify which waypoints act as bottlenecks to a hospital's 4 h ED disposition performance.

More Heart and Diabetes Checks (International)

Cardiovascular Risk Assessment: A Systematic Review of Guidelines
Many guidelines exist for screening and risk assessment for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in apparently healthy persons. The purpose of this systematic review, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, was to review current primary prevention guidelines on adult cardiovascular risk assessment and highlight the similarities and differences to aid clinician decision making.

Primary Health Care (New Zealand)

Adult Asthma Guidelines
The purpose of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ Adult Asthma Guidelines is to provide simple, practical and evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, assessment and management of asthma in adults (aged 16 and over) in a quick reference format.

A Longitudinal Study of Pre-pregnancy and Pregnancy Risk Factors Associated with Antenatal and Postnatal Symptoms of Depression: Evidence from Growing Up in New Zealand
Antenatal and postnatal depression can lead to poor outcomes for women and their children. The aim of this study, published in Maternal and Child Health Journal, was to explore whether risk factors differ for depression symptoms that are present during pregnancy and/or after childbirth.

Evidence-based interventions in primary care following acute coronary syndrome in Australia and New Zealand: a systematic scoping review
Coronary artery disease has a significant disease burden, but there are many known barriers to management of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). General practitioners (GPs) bear considerable responsibility for post-discharge management of ACS in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), but knowledge about the extent and efficacy of such management is limited. This systematic review, published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, summarises published evidence from Australia and New Zealand regarding management in primary care after discharge following ACS.

Primary Health Care (International)

Developing cultural competence in general practitioners: an integrative review of the literature
The aim of this article, published in BMC Family Practice, is to provide a comprehensive summary of the current literature with respect to the following: the elements of cultural competency that need to be fostered and developed in GPs and GP registrars; how is cultural competence being developed in General Practice currently; and who facilitates the development of cultural competence in General Practice.

Primary Mental Health (New Zealand)

Preventing suicide in indigenous communities
The purpose of this review, published in Current Opinion in Psychiatry, is to provide an update on recent studies on suicide prevention in indigenous populations with a focus on recently colonised indigenous peoples in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Do GPs and psychiatrists recommend alternatives when prescribing anti-depressants?
This study, published in Psychiatry Research, explores whether a partial explanation for high antidepressant prescription rates is the failure of prescribers to recommend alternatives.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (New Zealand)

Changes to smoking habits and addiction following tobacco excise tax increases: a comparison of Māori, Pacific and New Zealand European smokers
The objective of this study, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, was to compare changes in smoking habit and psychological addiction in Māori/Pacific and NZ European smokers in response to two annual excise tax increases from 2012 to 2014.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)

Interventions for tobacco use cessation in people in treatment for or recovery from substance use disorders
Tobacco use is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide, and smoking rates are especially high among people who are dependent on alcohol or other drugs. People who are being treated for alcohol or other drug addictions have not usually been offered treatment to help them stop smoking at the same time. There has been concern that trying to stop smoking might make people in treatment less likely to recover from other addictions. The objective of this Cochrane Review, was to evaluate whether interventions for tobacco cessation are associated with tobacco abstinence for people in concurrent treatment for or in recovery from alcohol and other drug dependence.

Childhood Obesity (New Zealand)

Dietary Intake and Eating Behaviours of Obese New Zealand Children and Adolescents Enrolled in a Community-Based Intervention Programme
The aim of this study, published in PLOS One, was to describe dietary intake and eating behaviours of obese children and adolescents, and also to determine how these differ in Indigenous versus non-Indigenous children at enrolment in an obesity programme.

Parental reactions to weight screening in young children: a randomized controlled trial
The purpose of this study, published in Pediatric Obesity, was to evaluate parental acceptance of child overweight status following screening.

Childhood Obesity (International)

Communicating with children and families about obesity and weight-related topics: a scoping review of best practices
Healthcare professionals have called for direction on how best to communicate about weight-related topics with children and families. This review, published in Obesity Reviews, aimed to explore how healthcare professionals can best communicate with children and their families about obesity and weight-related topics.

Oral Health (New Zealand)

Sugar, dental caries and the incidence of acute rheumatic fever: a cohort study of Māori and Pacific children
The objective of this study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, was to determine whether dental caries, as an indicator of cumulative exposure to sugar, is associated with the incidence of acute rheumatic fever and chronic rheumatic heart disease, in Māori and Pacific children aged 5 and 6 years at their first dental visit.

Māori Innovation

A qualitative Kaupapa Māori approach to understanding infant and young child feeding practices of Māori and Pacific grandparents in Auckland, New Zealand
This research, published in Public Health Nutrition, sought to better understand the barriers, facilitators, attitudes and beliefs that influence the way Māori and Samoan grandparents feed their grandchildren in a deprived urban neighbourhood in New Zealand.

Key Ministry of Health Publications

The Office of the Director of Mental Health Annual Report 2015
This annual report presents information and statistics that serve as indicators of quality for our mental health services. Active monitoring of services is vital to ensuring New Zealanders are receiving quality mental health care. The focus of this year’s report is on the transformational journey that mental health care in New Zealand is undergoing.