Search

In Europe and North America, a few developed countries have gradually implemented an "open disclosure" mechanism characterized by openness, analysis, and learning in dealing with adverse medical events, so that the cost of medical litigation and the reoccurrence rate of adverse medical events can be decreased. The United States was the earliest country to implement an open disclosure mechanism, while Australia has developed the most comprehensive policy. This paper reviewed the histories and current status of the open disclosure mechanism in the United States and Australia to derive implications for constructing a disclosure mechanism for adverse medical events in Taiwan. Two suggestions were made after a review of the two countries' experiences. First, the dominant Department of Health should plan and conduct large-scale epidemiologic research on adverse medical events to force the medical system to face the issue of medical injury seriously. Second, social action supporters in various areas should be mobilized to propose comprehensive social legislation, promote education, and advocate for Taiwan to move toward the goal of dealing with adverse medical events with open disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) with high mortality and disable rate is a public health problem of common concern all over the world. In order to improve the survival rate of OHCA, developed countries such as Europe and the United States have established regional and even national OHCA registration database for continuous monitoring and quality improvement of OHCA, identifying the weaknesses in each link of the survival chain, and evaluating effective measures to enhance the survival rate. At present, China still lacks of registration database that can comprehensively collect the information of OHCA and effectively reflect the treatment status and research direction of OHCA. In order to shorten the huge gap of OHCA survival rate between China and developed countries such as Europe and the United States, we should learn from the experience of foreign registration databases and establish OHCA registration database suitable for China's national conditions, so as to promote the improvement of OHCA survival rate in China. This paper presents several major OHCA registry databases of the internationally recognized,such as cardiac arrest registry to enhance survival (CARES), resuscitation outcomes consortium (ROC), European registry of cardiac arrest (EuReCa), Pan-Asian resuscitation outcomes registry (PAROS), and Australian resuscitation outcome consortium (Aus-ROC), aims to provide a reference for promoting the construction of the cardiac arrest registration database in China.

Through literature search in regular database and official websites of relevant countries, this paper combs and summarizes the main characteristics of disease prevention and control systems in five countries, the United States, Germany, South Korea, Australia and Japan, and the European Union at key levels including legal construction, organizational structure, financing, personnel construction and international cooperation, in order to provide decision support for the construction of disease prevention and control system in China in the future.

The design of "sham acupuncture" is necessary in clinical trials of acupuncture for confirming its effectiveness in the treatment of different disorders. The authors of the present paper made a comprehensive analysis on "sham acupuncture"or "placebo acupuncture" in clinical trials of acupuncture therapy in western countries from 1) the definition and background of sham acupuncture, 2) current state of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design in different countries, 3) current situations of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design in Germany, and 4) current state of large sample, randomized controlled clinical trials of acupuncture therapy with sham acupuncture design in other western countries. The authors of the present paper also make an analysis on the developing trends of acupuncture clinical trials with sham acupuncture design and put forward some problems existing in current acupuncture researches.