The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and discuss results. The Novartis Foundation, originally known as the Ciba Foundation, is well known to scientists and clinicians around the world.
At a time of unprecedented challenges and opportunities for public health, Prevention is Primary provides models, methods, and approaches for building health and equity in communities. Written in accessible and understandable language, this comprehensive book includes the theory, concepts, and models needed to harness social justice and practice primary prevention of unnecessary illness and injury in the first place. Prevention is Primary, written by associates of the nationally renowned Prevention Institute, is a theory-to-practice book for students, faculty practitioners, and community leaders who want to take a proactive stance against the most pressing health problems in the community including asthma, tobacco, violence, HIV, poor nutrition and physical inactivity, health disparities, and environmental injustice. The volume provides a comprehensive and practical understanding of prevention on a community level. The authors define the elements of comprehensive, quality prevention efforts—from the necessary partnerships that need to be developed to the training, vision, and policies that go into successful efforts.
Quality by Design reflects the research and applied training conducted at Dartmouth Medical School under the leadership of Gene Nelson, Paul Batalden, and Marjorie Godfrey. The book includes the research results of high-performing clinical microsystems, illustrative case studies that highlight individual clinical programs, guiding principles that are easily applied, and tools, techniques, and methods that can be adapted by clinical practices and interdisciplinary clinical teams. The authors describe how to develop microsystems that can attain peak performance through active engagement of interdisciplinary teams in learning and applying improvement science and measurement; explore the essence of leadership for clinical Microsystems; show what mid-level leaders can do to enable peak performance at the front lines of care; outline the design and redesign of services and planning care to match patient needs with services offered; examine the issue of safety; describe the vital role of data in creating a rich and useful information environment; provide a core curriculum that can build microsystems’ capability, provide excellent care, promote a positive work environment, and contribute to the larger organization. Ancillary materials for use in classroom teaching, training, or coaching are available at https://clinicalmicrosystem.org/
This invaluable guide shows students and professionals how measurements and data can be used to balance quality services and financial viability and how measures can help to evaluate and improve organizational, clinical, and financial processes. The book explains the various performance measurement methods used in health care and shows their practical impact on clinical patient outcomes.
Advancing Health Literacy addresses the crisis in health literacy in the United States and around the world. This book thoroughly examines the critical role of literacy in public health and outlines a practical, effective model that bridges the gap between health education, health promotion, and health communication. Step by step, the authors outline the theory and practice of health literacy from a public health perspective. This comprehensive resource includes the history of health literacy, theoretical foundations of health and language literacy, the role of the media, a series of case studies on important topics including prenatal care, anthrax, HIV/AIDS, genomics, and diabetes. The book concludes with a series of practical guidelines for the development and assessment of health communications materials. Also included are essential techniques needed to help people make informed decisions, advocate for themselves and their community, mitigate risk, and live healthier lives.
This volume presents a systematic review of interprofessional education in health and social care. This is accompanied by a wider-ranging critique of interprofessional education, grounded by experience, and informed by sources beyond the evaluations that qualified for inclusion in the review. Synthesising the evidence base for interprofessional education nevertheless remains central, with 353 studies surveyed in the first instance, from which 107 studies form the basis for the final analysis. The book does much more than amass evidence. It revisits conventional wisdom; setting an agenda to help interested parties perform better by applying lessons learned, remedying weaknesses and renewing efforts to address unanswered questions. The first three chapters set the scene for the systematic review and its findings. The middle section of the book articulates the findings of the review. Finally, the closing chapters consider values and attitudes, theoretical perspectives and offer conclusions. Arguments, assumptions and evidence in this publication are presented to inform policy making, programme planning, teaching and research.
This volume presents a practical guide to the development, application and evaluation of effective interprofessional education in health and social care. It is both a practice manual for those in hands-on roles and a reflective guide for those indirectly involved in professional education. The book provides clear advice on methods of establishing training and education programmes and evaluating their effectiveness, while simultaneously examining the relationship between initial application, ongoing maintenance and subsequent assessment. The authors expound multiple points of view that will generate individual thinking and approaches to both the practice and the estimation of interprofessional education schemes. The book is divided into three sections: the first introduces the differing approaches to professional education and the rationale behind measuring their worth; the second part focuses on planning, development and delivery; the third part advises in a robust and pragmatic way on modes of measuring the efficacy of programmes. The interrelation of these topics is then examined to provide a synthesised perspective on the development, delivery and evaluation of interprofessional education.
Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) refers to pneumonia acquired outside of hospitals or extended-care facilities, and is distinct from Nosocomial or hospital-acquired pneumonia, which is a separate disease entity. It is one of the most common respiratory infections and presents one of the major health problems today, with an incidence that ranges from eight to fifty cases per thousand individuals each year. Mortality is still very high and yet the risk factors are very well known. Many of these are related to antibiotic treatment; delay in administration, inadequacy of empiric antibiotics and lack of adherence to guidelines for treatment are all clearly associated with poor treatment outcomes. Following a description of the epidemiology and microbial etiology of ambulatory and hospitalized CAP, this book provides an in-depth review of the important new advances in therapeutics, including management of drug resistance to the three major classes of antibiotics used for treatment of CAP: β-lactams, macrolides and quinolones. All of them have advantages and disadvantages and these are put into perspective. This book highlights guideline recommendations and presents a balanced analysis to help physicians deliver the highest standard of care. In addition, the authors provide an insight into the 10% of patients who do not respond to antibiotics and could benefit from adjunctive therapies, some still under review. This volume will be welcomed by pulmonologists and all clinicians involved in managing community-acquired pneumonia.
Randomized controlled trials are one of the most powerful and revolutionary tools of research. This book is a convenient and accessible description of the underlying principles and practice of randomized controlled trials and their role in clinical decision-making. Structured in a jargon-free question-and-answer format, each chapter provides concise and understandable information on a different aspect of randomized controlled trials, from the basics of trial design and terminology to the interpretation of results and their use in driving evidence-based medicine. The authors end each chapter with their musings, going beyond the evidence or citations, and sometimes even beyond orthodox correctness to share their thoughts and concerns about different aspects of randomized controlled trials, and their role within the health system. Updated to include insights from the last decade, this second edition challenges over-reliance on randomized controlled trials by debating their strengths and limitations and discussing their optimal use in modern healthcare. It also includes a new and increasingly relevant chapter on the ethics of randomized trials. World renowned writers and thinkers Drs Jadad and Enkin bring you this invaluable book for busy health professionals who wish to understand the theory of randomized controlled trials and their influence on clinical, research or policy decisions.
The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and discuss results. The Novartis Foundation, originally known as the Ciba Foundation, is well known to scientists and clinicians around the world.