Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 133 - 15 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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The next issue of HIID will be sent on the 19th January 2017. Wishing you all the best over the holidays!

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.

Quality Improvement (New Zealand)

Exploring the context for effective clinical governance in infection control
Effective clinical governance is necessary to support improvements in infection control. Historically, the focus has been on ensuring that infection control practice and policy is based on evidence, and that there is use of surveillance and auditing for self-regulation and performance feedback. There has been less exploration of how contextual and organizational factors mediate an infection preventionists (IP's) ability to engage with evidence-based practice and enact good clinical governance. This paper, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, explores this.

The electronic tracking of referral and attendance at cardiac rehabilitation in Counties Manukau Health: a potential model for New Zealand
Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programmes for patients surviving an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) event are important and recommended by clinical guidelines. Referral and attendance, however, remain suboptimal and tracking both of these aspects to inform quality improvement has been difficult. The aim of this study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, was to describe the use of an electronic registry to capture referral and attendance at CR in Counties Manukau Health and to report the characteristics of the initial cohort.

Hospital Productivity (New Zealand)

The impact of a surgical assessment unit on numbers of general surgery outliers
In July 2015 a surgical assessment unit was established at Middlemore Hospital. This is a 10 bed area adjacent to the emergency department, the aims of which include assessing and managing surgical patients who are likely to have short hospital stays with increased efficiency. This study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, investigated the impact of the assessment unit’s introduction on the numbers of general surgery patients admitted to non-general surgery wards, something which is necessary if there are no available beds on general surgery wards.

Hospital Productivity (International)

Case management effectiveness in reducing hospital use: a systematic review
This systematic review, published in International Nursing Review, synthesizes recent evidence of the effectiveness of case management in reducing hospital use by individuals with chronic illnesses.

Shorter Stays In Emergency Departments (International)

The Sydney Triage to Admission Risk Tool (START) to predict Emergency Department Disposition: A derivation and internal validation study using retrospective state-wide data from New South Wales, Australia
Disposition decisions are critical to the functioning of Emergency Departments. The objectives of this study, published in BMC Emergency Medicine, were to derive and internally validate a prediction model for inpatient admission from the Emergency Department to assist with triage, patient flow and clinical decision making.

Primary Health Care (New Zealand)

Systematic review of rheumatic disease epidemiology in the indigenous populations of Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand
Past publications have highlighted an excess rheumatic disease incidence and prevalence in indigenous populations of Canada (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis), and the United States of America (Alaska Native and American Indian). The authors of this review, published in Seminars in Arthritis & Rheumatism, have updated these reviews and expanded the scope to include New Zealand (Maori) and Australia (Aborigine) indigenous populations.

Primary Health Care (International)

Does integrated care reduce hospital activity for patients with chronic diseases? An umbrella review of systematic reviews
The objective of this review, published in BMJ Open, was to summarise the evidence regarding the effectiveness of integrated care interventions in reducing hospital activity.

Co-location as a Driver for Cross-Sectoral Collaboration with General Practitioners as Coordinators: The Case of a Danish Municipal Health Centre
The issue of integrated care and inter-sectoral collaboration is on the health policy agenda in many countries. Yet, there is limited knowledge about the effects of the different policy instruments used to achieve this. This paper, published in the International Journal of Integrated Care, studies co-location as a driver for cross-sectoral collaboration with general practitioners (GPs) acting as coordinators in a municipal health centre.

Primary Mental Health (International)

How Australian general practitioners engage in discussions about alcohol with their patients: a cross-sectional study
This study, published in BMJ Open, aimed to investigate factors that inhibit and facilitate discussion about alcohol between general practitioners (GPs) and patients.

Screening in Primary Care: What Is the Best Way to Identify At-Risk Youth for Substance Use?
It is important to improve primary care providers’ capability to identify youth at risk for alcohol and other drug use. This study, published in Pediatrics, used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition criteria to compare screeners for youth for both alcohol and marijuana.

Increased Immunisation (New Zealand)

Age-specific effectiveness following each dose of acellular pertussis vaccine among infants and children in New Zealand
Though it is believed the switch from whole cell to acellular pertussis vaccine has contributed to the resurgence of pertussis disease, few studies have evaluated vaccine effectiveness (VE) and duration of protection provided by an acellular vaccine schedule including three primary doses but no toddler-age dose. This study, published in Vaccine, assessed this schedule in New Zealand (NZ), a setting with historically high rates of pertussis disease, and low but recently improved immunisation coverage. We further evaluated protection following the preschool-age booster dose.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)

Electronic cigarettes as smoking cessation tool: are we there?
Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use is rapidly increasing, with many users reporting trying e-cigarettes as a method to quit combustible cigarettes. This review, published in Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine, highlights recently published studies assessing the use of e-cigarettes as a tool for cessation of combustible cigarettes.

Weight Management (International)

Bariatric Surgery for Adolescents and Young Adults: A Review of Comparative Clinical Effectiveness, Cost-Effectiveness, and Evidence-Based Guidelines
This review, published by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, seeks to assess the comparative clinical and cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery versus viable comparators in the adolescent and young adult population, and to review current evidence-based guidelines regarding the use of bariatric surgery in the adolescent population.

Obesity management in Australian primary care: where has the general practitioner gone?
Obesity is a chronic condition with significant health and economic consequences that requires more effective management in Australia. General practitioners (GPs) currently act as care co-ordinators in line with national guidelines for overweight and obesity. This paper, published in the Australian Journal of Primary Health, explores the GP’s role in obesity management.

Childhood Obesity (International)

Home visitation programs: an untapped opportunity for the delivery of early childhood obesity prevention
This concept paper, published in Obesity Reviews, proposes an innovative model of obesity prevention implemented in infancy and sustained throughout early childhood to address the limitations of current obesity prevention efforts. Specifically, it proposes to integrate sustained, weekly, in-home obesity prevention as part of the services already delivered by ongoing Home Visitation Programs, which currently do not target obesity prevention.

Māori Innovation

Indigenous positioning in health research: The importance of Kaupapa Māori theory informed practice
Understanding how to undertake Kaupapa Māori research can be a challenge for emerging health researchers. Unless emerging researchers have exposure to Kaupapa Māori theory or senior Māori health research expertise, the challenge of undertaking Kaupapa Māori research within health research contexts can seem daunting, and for some, too difficult to attempt. This article , published in AlterNative, summarizes what an Indigenous positioning means to me as a health researcher, medical practitioner, academic and Māori community member, and why it is more than just a methodological approach.