Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 159 - 18 January 2018

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)

Primary care patient experience survey: Results from the first year of pilots
This is the first annual report of responses to the primary care patient experience survey carried out by the Health Quality and Safety Commission. It focuses on what priorities for improvement come from the results.

Formative report - interim evaluation of the Surgical Site Infection Improvement programme
This is a report by the Sapere Research Group for the Health Quality and Safety Commission to evaluate the Commission's Surgical Site Infection Improvement programme. The purpose of this interim, formative report is to identify key insights and learnings, primarily from review of documentation and stakeholder interviews, to help shape the design and planning of the next phase of programme activity.

Quality Improvement (International)

Empowering people to help speak up about safety in primary care: Using codesign to involve patients and professionals in developing new interventions for patients with multimorbidity
Multimorbidity, defined as the presence of two or more long-term conditions, is increasingly common in primary care, and patients with multimorbidity may face particular barriers to quality of care and increased safety risks due to the complexity of managing multiple conditions. This study, published in Health Expectations, aimed to use design materials to codesign new interventions to improve safety in primary care.

Hospital Productivity (International)

Lean Management to support Choosing Wisely in healthcare: the first evidence from a systematic literature review
Choosing Wisely (CW) is an emergent approach to identify and reduce unnecessary care, such as tests and treatments that do not add value for patients and may even cause harm. The purpose of this paper, published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, is to investigate whether and how Lean Healthcare Management can support CW objectives, focusing on customer needs and on waste elimination.

Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes (New Zealand)

The effectiveness of a primary care nursing-led dietary intervention for prediabetes: a mixed methods pilot study
Primary care nurse-led prediabetes interventions are seldom reported. This study, published in BMC Family Practice, examined the implementation and feasibility of a 6-month multilevel primary care nurse-led prediabetes lifestyle intervention compared with current practice in patients with prediabetes, with weight and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) as outcomes.

Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes (International)

Exercise for pregnant women with pre-existing diabetes for improving maternal and fetal outcomes
Pregnancies with pre-existing diabetes are high risk, with increased risk of poorer fetal, neonatal, and maternal outcomes. Identifying interventions to improving health outcomes for women with diabetes and their infants is a priority, as rates of diabetes continue to increase. The objective of this Cochrane Review was to evaluate the effects of exercise interventions for improving maternal and fetal outcomes in women with pre-existing diabetes.

Primary Health Care (New Zealand)

Unmet need for referred services as measured by general practice
Unmet needs are a key indicator of the success of a health system. The aim of this survey, published in the Journal of Primary Health Care, was to estimate the proportion of patients attending general practice who were unable to access clinically indicated referred services.

Beyond the four walls: an exploratory survey of location, employment and roles of pharmacists in primary health care
Recognition of the need to reduce harm and optimise patient outcomes from the use of medicines is contributing to an evolution of pharmacy practice in primary health care internationally. This evolution is changing community pharmacy and leading to new models of care that enable pharmacist contribution beyond traditional realms. There is little information about the extent of these changes in New Zealand. The aim of this study, published in the Journal of Primary Health Care, was to investigate emerging roles of pharmacists in primary health care.

Strength of primary care service delivery: a comparative study of European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada
This study, published in Primary Health Care Research and Development, sought to examine strength of primary care service delivery as measured by selected process indicators by general practitioners from 31 European countries plus Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Primary Mental Health (New Zealand)

Caring for self-harming patients in general practice
Intentional self-harm is an international public health issue with high personal, social and financial costs to society. Poor relationship dynamics are known to have a negative influence on the psyche of people who self-harm, and this can increase anxiety and decrease self-esteem, both shown to be significant contributors to self-harm behaviours. Positive and functional social supports have been proposed as a cost-effective and constructive approach in diminishing self-harming behaviours. This qualitative study, published in the Journal of Primary Health Care, investigated the aspects of professional, social, familial and romantic relationships that people who have self-harmed identified as having a positive and constructive effect on their self-harm behaviour.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)

Nursing interventions for smoking cessation
Healthcare professionals, including nurses, frequently advise people to improve their health by stopping smoking. Such advice may be brief, or part of more intensive interventions. The objective of this Cochrane Review was to determine the effectiveness of nursing-delivered smoking cessation interventions in adults.

Cost-effectiveness of tobacco control policies and programmes targeting adolescents: a systematic review
Consistent evidence shows the importance of preventing smoking at young ages, when health behaviours are formed, with long-term consequences on health and survival. Although tobacco control policies and programmes targeting adolescents are widely promoted, the cost-effectiveness of such interventions has not been systematically documented. This systematic review, published in the European Journal of Public Health, explored the cost-effectiveness of policies and programmes preventing tobacco consumption targeting adolescents.

Seven years of progress in tobacco control: an evaluation of the effect of nations meeting the highest level MPOWER measures between 2007 and 2014
Since WHO released the package of six MPOWER measures to assist nations with implementing the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), 88 countries adopted at least one highest level MPOWER measure. This study, published in Tobacco Control, estimated the subsequent reduction in smoking-related deaths from all new highest level measures adopted between 2007 and 2014.

Weight Management (New Zealand)

How Nutrition Sensitive Are the Nutrition Policies of New Zealand Food Manufacturers? A Benchmarking Study
Nutrition sensitive policy addresses the underlying determinants of nutrition-related disease and is a powerful tool in reducing the incidence of non-communicable disease. Some members of the food industry have long standing commitments to health-oriented nutrition policies. The aim of this study, published in Nutrients, was to develop and apply a balanced scorecard of nutrition sensitive indicators to the policies of influential New Zealand food and beverage manufacturers and explore factors affecting policy processes.

Weight Management (International)

Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Weight Gain in Children and Adults: A Systematic Review from 2013 to 2015 and a Comparison with Previous Studies
Partly inconsistent findings from previous reviews have fuelled discussions on the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) on obesity development. The aim of this systematic review, published in Obesity Facts, review the recent evidence in children and adults.

Childhood Obesity (New Zealand)

Improving rates of overweight, obesity and extreme obesity in New Zealand 4-year-old children in 2010-2016
Prevalence of childhood obesity is high in developed countries, and there is a growing concern regarding increasing socio-economic disparities. The objective of this study, published in Pediatric Obesity, was to assess trends in the prevalence of overweight, obesity and extreme obesity among New Zealand 4-year olds, and whether these differ by socio-economic and ethnic groupings.

Childhood Obesity (International)

Association of eating while television viewing and overweight/obesity among children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis, published in Obesity Reviews, was to examine the association between eating while television viewing and overweight or obesity in children.

Effectiveness of the Healthy Lifestyles Programme (HeLP) to prevent obesity in UK primary-school children: a cluster randomised controlled trial
Although childhood overweight and obesity prevalence has increased substantially worldwide in the past three decades, scarce evidence exists for effective preventive strategies. This study, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, aimed to establish whether a school-based intervention for children aged 9-10 years would prevent excessive weight gain after 24 months.

Oral Health (International)

School dental screening programmes for oral health
School dental screening refers to visual inspection of children’s oral cavity in a school setting followed by making parents aware of their child’s current oral health status and treatment needs. Screening at school intends to identify children at an earlier stage than symptomatic disease presentation, hence prompting preventive and therapeutic oral health care for the children. This Cochrane Review evaluates the effectiveness of school dental screening in improving oral health status.

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.