Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 188 - 11 April 2019

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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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.

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)

Interventions for reducing falls and harm from falls in older people with cognitive impairment
This report, published by the Health Quality & Safety Commission, expands on the topic of falls and cognitive impairment, and presents evidence and implementation strategies for interventions to help reduce falls and harm from falls in individuals with cognitive impairment.

Reducing harm from falls: recommended evidence-based resources 2019
This document, published by the Health Quality & Safety Commission, includes systematic reviews, clinical guidelines and toolkits.

#O2TheFix toolkit
The aim of this toolkit, produced by the Waitematā District Health Board and shared by the Health Quality & Safety Commission, is to increase awareness and practice of oxygen as a medicine and improve prescribing, administration, monitoring and titration.

Mismatches between health service delivery and community expectations in the provision of secondary prophylaxis for rheumatic fever in New Zealand
This research, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, explored Māori and Pacific family experiences of recurrences of rheumatic fever (RRF) to better understand barriers to accessing secondary prophylaxis to inform health service improvements.

Disability Sector Quality Improvement (International)

‘Sweet dreams’: an evidence-based approach to effective sleep hygiene maintenance for people with an intellectual disability
This article, published in Learning Disability Practice, outlines the main challenges that people with intellectual disabilities may have initiating and sustaining sleep, explains the nature, prevalence and causes of sleeping problems they experience and discusses a variety of assessments of sleeping issues. It also examines sleep maintenance, management and sleep hygiene approaches to support this cohort using a person-centred nursing care plan and concludes with some suggestions for sleep maintenance and hygiene.

Shorter Stays In Emergency Departments (International)

Effectiveness of nurse-initiated X-ray for emergency department patients with distal limb injuries: a systematic review
The aim of this study, published in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine, was to systematically review the literature on the effectiveness of nurse-initiated X-ray for emergency department patients with distal limb injuries.

Designing efficient emergency departments: discrete event simulation of internal-waiting areas and split flow sorting
The objective of this study, published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, was to evaluate nine different models, the interaction of three flow models (ESI, intake attending physician, and no split flow) and three physical design typologies (zero, one, and two internal-waiting areas), on Emergency Department (ED) flow and patient-centered metrics.

Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes (New Zealand)

High level of capture of coronary intervention and associated acute coronary syndromes in the all New Zealand acute coronary syndrome quality improvement cardiac registry and excellent agreement with national administrative datasets
The All New Zealand Acute Coronary Syndrome Quality Improvement (ANZACS-QI) registry was designed to collect data on all coronary angiograms and percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in New Zealand, and all acute coronary syndromes (ACS) associated with these procedures. This study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, compares the completeness of capture in ANZACS-QI of coronary procedures and ACS admissions with those recorded in the National Hospitalisation Dataset and evaluates data quality by assessing agreement in ACS diagnoses and coronary procedures between datasets.

Regional variation in the risk of lower-limb amputation among patients with diabetes in New Zealand
Lower-limb amputation is one of the most substantial and debilitating consequences of diabetes mellitus; however, the risk of lower-limb amputation is not equally shared across the diabetic population. The aims of this study, published in the ANZ Journal of Surgery, were to (i) describe regional variation in the rate of lower-limb amputation in New Zealand among a national prevalent cohort of patients with diabetes; and (ii) explore the plausible factors that could be contributing to this variation.

Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes (International)

The impact of a nurse-led elective Direct Current Cardioversion (DCCV) in Atrial Fibrillation (AF) on patient outcomes: a systematic review
The aim of this systematic review, published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, was to examine and present the success rate in relation to nurse-led elective Direct Current Cardioversion (DCCV) service in Atrial Fibrillation (AF) patients.

Better Help for smokers to Quit (International)

What public health strategies work to reduce the tobacco demand among young people? An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses
The objective of this study, published in Health Policy, was to perform an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of health policy and health promotion strategies to reduce the tobacco demand in adolescents, youth and young adults.

Understanding the multitude of barriers that prevent smokers in lower socioeconomic groups from accessing smoking cessation support: a literature review
One explanation for the increasing smoking-related health inequalities is the limited access of lower socioeconomic status (SES) smokers to smoking cessation support. In order to understand this limited access – and to eventually improve accessibility – this study, published in Preventive Medicine, provides a structured overview of the barriers that lower SES smokers face in the successive phases of access to cessation support.

Childhood Obesity (New Zealand)

Prime Minister for a day: children's views on junk food marketing and what to do about it
This study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, explored children's awareness of and engagement with food marketing, and their views on action to address it.

Childhood Obesity (International)

Public policies to reduce sugary drink consumption in children and adolescents
Excess consumption of added sugars, especially from sugary drinks, poses a grave health threat to children and adolescents, disproportionately affecting children of minority and low-income communities. Public policies, such as those detailed in this statement published in Pediatrics, are needed to decrease child and adolescent consumption of added sugars and improve health.

Oral Health (New Zealand)

Caries-preventive efficacy of a supervised school toothbrushing programme in Northland, New Zealand
Toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste reduces the incidence of dental caries. The objective of this study, published in Community Dental Health, was to evaluate a supervised school toothbrushing programme to reduce dental caries experience in children.

Oral Health (International)

Systematic review of evidence pertaining to factors that modify risk of early childhood caries
The objective of this study, published in JDR Clinical & Translational Research, was to systematically review published evidence pertaining to the effect of modifiable risk factors on ECC, to inform recommendations in a World Health Organization manual on ECC prevention.

Key Ministry of Health Publications

Green Prescription patient survey 2018 report
This report by Research New Zealand presents the findings from the 2018 Green Prescription (GRx) adult patient survey, conducted for the Ministry of Health from March to May 2018.
The GRx patient survey allows the Ministry to monitor the performance of the GRx initiative each year. The ongoing success of the programme is measured against eight key performance indicators (KPIs), developed by the Ministry. This measurement is also used to provide feedback to the 17 contract holders around the country.

Green Prescription Active Families survey report: May 2018
The Green Prescription (GRx) Active Families programme has grown out of the nationwide GRx initiative for adults, responding to requests from primary care for something similar for children and young people. This is the ninth survey by Research New Zealand in an ongoing evaluation of the participants in the Active Families programme. The survey seeks the views of participants about how well the programme worked for their child and family. The findings represent the views of 269 families who participated between July 2016 and April 2018.

Annual update of key results 2017/18: New Zealand Health Survey
The Annual Data Explorer provides a snapshot of the health of New Zealanders through the publication of key indicators on health behaviours, health status and access to health care for both adults and children. The Annual Data Explorer shows 2017/18 results from the continuous New Zealand Health Survey, with comparisons to earlier surveys. Results are available by gender, age group, ethnic group and neighbourhood deprivation.

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.