Ministry of Health Library
Health Improvement and Innovation Digest
Issue 143 - 25 May 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.
You can forward this newsletter to others who may be interested in receiving it. They can register and subscribe here. You can also access other recent issues of the digest here.
If you have any queries, please email us at library@moh.govt.nz.
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
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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.
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Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment (International)
Shared care involving cancer specialists and primary care providers – What do cancer survivors want?
Cancer survivors are living longer, prompting greater focus on managing cancer as a chronic condition. Shared care between primary care providers (PCPs) and cancer specialists, involving explicit partnership in how care is communicated, could ensure effective transitions between services. However, little is known about cancer patients' and survivors' preferences regarding shared care. The objective of this study, published in Health Expectations, was to explore Australian cancer survivors' views on shared care.
Toward Implementing Patient Flow in a Cancer Treatment Center to Reduce Patient Waiting Time and Improve Efficiency
Outpatient cancer treatment centres can be considered as complex systems in which several types of medical professionals and administrative staff must coordinate their work to achieve the overall goals of providing quality patient care within budgetary constraints. In this article, published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, the authors use analytical methods that have been successfully employed for other complex systems to show how a clinic can simultaneously reduce patient waiting times and non-value added staff work in a process that has a series of steps, more than one of which involves a scarce resource
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Primary Health Care (New Zealand)
Improving Health Literacy: New Zealand Medical Association Policy Briefing
The New Zealand Medical Association has published a policy briefing on Improving Health Literacy, that seeks to promote a shared understanding of what health literacy means, why it is important, and what can be done to improve it.
Organisational systems' approaches to improving cultural competence in healthcare: a systematic scoping review of the literature
Healthcare organisations serve clients from diverse Indigenous and other ethnic and racial groups on a daily basis, and require appropriate client-centred systems and services for provision of optimal healthcare. Despite advocacy for systems-level approaches to cultural competence, the primary focus in the literature remains on competency strategies aimed at health promotion initiatives, workforce development and student education. This paper, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, aims to bridge the gap in available evidence about systems approaches to cultural competence by systematically mapping key concepts, types of evidence, and gaps in research.
Better, Sooner, More Convenient? The reality of pursuing greater integration between primary and secondary healthcare providers in New Zealand
This article, published in SAGE Open Medicine, focuses on the results of evaluations of two business plans developed in response to a policy initiative which aimed to achieve greater integration between primary and secondary health providers in New Zealand.
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Primary Mental Health (New Zealand)
Suicide prevention in mental health services: A qualitative analysis of coroners' reports
Suicide is a major concern for mental health nurses because of its clear correlation with mental illness. In New Zealand, coroners investigate all deaths that appear to be a result of suicide, and provide reports to mental health services (MHS). The aim of the present study, published in International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, was to investigate coronial recommendations to MHS in relation to suicide prevention and to examine clinical and family responses to these.
A Brief Mindfulness Intervention Is Associated with Negative Outcomes in a Randomised Controlled Trial Among Chemotherapy Patients
Emotional distress is common during chemotherapy, and supportive interventions during this time are often required. Mindfulness-based interventions appear promising amongst cancer survivors, but scant research has been conducted amongst patients undergoing acute treatment. This trial, published in Mindfulness, compared the efficacy of a brief mindfulness-based intervention (bMBT) with relaxation therapy on reducing distress amongst chemotherapy patients.
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Primary Mental Health (International)
Effectiveness of Psychological and Educational Interventions to Prevent Depression in Primary Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Although evidence exists for the efficacy of psychosocial interventions to prevent the onset of depression, little is known about its prevention in primary care. This study, published in Annals of Family Medicine, aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of psychological and educational interventions to prevent depression in primary care.
The Effective Use of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses in Integrated Care: Policy Implications for Increasing Quality and Access to Care
In the last ten years primary care providers have been encouraged to implement integrated models of care where individuals' medical and mental health needs are addressed holistically. Many integrated models use Psychiatric Mental Health (PMH) nurses as case managers and select exemplars use PMH Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) as providers. However, the potential value of PMH nurses in integrated health care remains unrealized by health care planners and payers, limiting access to services for the populations most in need of comprehensive care approaches. This current situation is partially fueled by insufficient knowledge of the roles and skill sets of PMH nurses. In this paper, published in the
Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, the PMH RN and APN skill sets are detailed, demonstrating how effective use of these nurses can further the aims of integrated care models. Finally, outlined are barriers and enabling factors to effective use of PMH RNs and APNs and attendant policy implications.
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Increased Immunisation (International)
The impacts of email reminder/recall on adolescent influenza vaccination
This study, published in Vaccine, sought to explore the feasibility of using email for seasonal influenza vaccination reminders to parents of adolescents and assess influenza vaccination rates among adolescents whose parents were randomized to either receive or not receive email reminders.
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Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)
Systematic review of social media interventions for smoking cessation
Popular social media could extend the reach of smoking cessation efforts. This systematic review, published in Addictive Behaviors, aimed to determine whether social media interventions for smoking cessation are feasible, acceptable, and potentially effective.
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