Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 151 - 14 September 2017

Welcome to the fortnightly Health Improvement and Innovation Digest (formerly the HIIRC digest). 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.  If you'd like to subscribe to Grey Matter, email library@moh.govt.nz

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)

Ethical Guideline for Quality Improvement
These guidelines and practical tools have been developed by Ko Awatea as a resource to support staff of Counties Manukau Health to consider ethical implications of quality improvement.

Quality Improvement (International)

Interventions to improve hand hygiene compliance in patient care
Health care-associated infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand hygiene is regarded as an effective preventive measure. The objective of this Cochrane Review was to assess the short- and long-term success of strategies to improve compliance to recommendations for hand hygiene, and to determine whether an increase in hand hygiene compliance can reduce rates of health care-associated infection.

Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment (International)

Timely initiation of chemotherapy: a systematic literature review of six priority cancers - results and recommendations for clinical practice
This review, published in Internal Medicine Journal, evaluated the association between time-to-chemotherapy (TTC) and survival in six priority cancers.

Shorter Stays In Emergency Departments (New Zealand)

The association between the first locating emergency ambulance being single crewed and cardiac arrest outcomes in New Zealand
This study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, investigated the association between the first locating emergency ambulance being single crewed on outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in New Zealand.

Shorter Stays In Emergency Departments (International)

Patient Navigation for Patients Frequently Visiting the Emergency Department: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
Emergency Department (ED) super-utilizers (patients with 5 or more visits/year) comprise only 5% of the patients seen yet comprise 25% of total ED visits. The objective of this study, published in Academic Emergency Medicine, was to determine whether a trained Patient Navigator (PN) can reduce ED use and costs in super-utilizers over a one year period.

Primary Health Care (New Zealand)

Evaluating Maternity Units: a prospective cohort study of freestanding midwife-led primary maternity units in New Zealand—clinical outcomes
The objective of this study, published in BMJ Open, was to compare maternal and neonatal birth outcomes and morbidities associated with the intention to give birth in a freestanding primary level midwife-led maternity unit (PMU) or tertiary level obstetric-led maternity hospital (TMH) in Canterbury, Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Primary Health Care (International)

Implementation and maintenance of patient navigation programs linking primary care with community-based health and social services: a scoping literature review
This paper, published in BMC Health Services Research, fills a gap in knowledge to reveal what is known about motivators and factors influencing implementation and maintenance of patient navigation programs in primary care that link patients to community-based health and social services.

Collaboration in teams with nurse practitioners and general practitioners during out-of-hours and implications for patient care; a qualitative study
Increasingly, nurse practitioners (NPs) are deployed in teams along with general practitioners (GPs) to help meet the demand for out-of-hours care. The purpose of this study, published in BMC Health Services Research, was to explore factors influencing collaboration between GPs and NPs in teams working out-of-hours.

Primary Mental Health (New Zealand)

How gambling harms experienced by Pacific people in New Zealand amplify when they are culture-related
Pacific people in New Zealand are a minority ethnic population identified in national prevalence studies as having the highest risk of developing gambling problems. As earlier studies identified some links between culture and gambling for this population, this study, published in the Asian Journal of Gambling Issues and Public Health, aimed to deepen understanding of these links and their role in explaining the disproportionate gambling harms experienced by Pacific people.

Increased Immunisation (International)

Text4baby Influenza Messaging and Influenza Vaccination Among Pregnant Women
Text4baby is a free national text service providing influenza vaccination education and reminders to pregnant women. This study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examined reported influenza vaccination during pregnancy among Text4baby participants who reported receiving influenza messages and women who reported never participating in Text4baby.

Exploring provider and parental perceptions to influenza vaccination in the inpatient setting
Hospitalization provides an ideal opportunity for immunization, but few studies have explored provider and parental attitudes towards paediatric inpatient vaccination against influenza. The objective of this study, published in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, was to determine provider and caregiver attitudes and explore potential barriers to inpatient influenza vaccination.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (New Zealand)

Smokefree signage at children's playgrounds: Field observations and comparison with Google Street View
Although there is global growth in outdoor smokefree areas, little is known about the associated smokefree signage. This study, published in Tobacco Induced Diseases, aimed to study smokefree signage at playgrounds and to compare field observations with images from Google Street View.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)

Internet-based interventions for smoking cessation
The objective of this Cochrane Review was to determine the effectiveness of Internet-based interventions for smoking cessation, whether intervention effectiveness is altered by tailoring or interactive features, and if there is a difference in effectiveness between adolescents, young adults, and adults.

Weight Management (International)

Does evidence support the use of mobile phone apps as a driver for promoting healthy lifestyles from a public health perspective? A systematic review of Randomized Control Trials.
The aim of this systematic review, published in Patient Education and Counseling, was to find scientific evidence on the efficacy of apps in promoting healthy lifestyles.

Childhood Obesity (New Zealand)

Lifestyle weight management programmes for children: A systematic review using Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify critical pathways to effectiveness
This systematic review, published in Preventive Medicine, aimed to identify critical features of successful lifestyle weight management interventions for overweight children (0-11years).

Māori Innovation

Examining the predictors of academic outcomes for indigenous Māori, Pacific and rural students admitted into medicine via two equity pathways: a retrospective observational study at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
The objective of this study, published in BMJ Open, was to determine associations between admission markers of socioeconomic status, transitioning, bridging programme attendance and prior academic preparation on academic outcomes for indigenous Māori, Pacific and rural students admitted into medicine under access pathways designed to widen participation.

Key Ministry of Health Publications

Faiva Ora 2016–2021 National Pasifika Disability Plan
Faiva Ora 2016–2021 sets out priority outcomes and actions to support and improve the lives of Pacific disabled people of all ages and their families.

The information available on or through this newsletter does not represent Ministry of Health policy. It is intended to provide general information to the health sector and the public, and is not intended to address specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity.