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Background: Engagement is recognized as an important factor in aphasia treatment response and outcomes, yet gaps remain in our understanding of engagement and practices that promote engagement from the client perspective. Aims: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how clients with aphasia experience engagement during their inpatient aphasia rehabilitation. Methods & Procedures: An interpretative phenomenological analysis approach guided the study design and analysis. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews with nine clients with aphasia, recruited through purposive sampling, during their inpatient rehabilitation admission. Analysis was completed using a variety of analytic techniques including coding, memoing, triangulation between coders and team discussion. Outcomes & Results: The analysis revealed that for clients with aphasia in the acute phrase of recovery, the rehabilitation process resembles travelling on a journey through a foreign land. Successful engagement in the journey was accomplished when one had a therapist who served as a trusted guide and was able to be a friend, invested, adaptable, a co‐creator, encouraging and dependable. Conclusions & Implications: Engagement is a dynamic, multifaceted and person‐centred process involving the client, provider and rehabilitation context. Findings from this work have implications for measuring engagement, training student clinicians to be skilled facilitators in engaging their clients and implementing person‐centred practices that promote engagement within clinical settings. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Engagement is recognized as an important factor in rehabilitation treatment response and outcomes. Prior literature suggests that the therapist plays a critical role in facilitating engagement within the client–provider relationship. Communication impairments associated with aphasia may negatively impact a client's ability to develop interpersonal connections and participate in the rehabilitation process. There is a dearth of research directly exploring the topic of engagement in aphasia rehabilitation, particularly from the perspective of clients with aphasia. Capturing the client perspective can provide novel insights regarding practices to foster and maintain engagement in aphasia rehabilitation. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This interpretative phenomenological study revealed that for individuals with aphasia in the acute phase of recovery, the rehabilitation process resembles travelling on a sudden and foreign journey. Successful engagement in the journey was accomplished when one had a therapist who served as a 'trusted guide' and was able to be a friend, invested, adaptable, a co‐creator, encouraging and dependable. Through the client experience, engagement is seen as a dynamic, multifaceted and person‐centred process involving the client, provider and rehabilitation context. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: The current study highlights the complexity and nuance of engagement within the rehabilitation context, which has implications for measuring engagement, training student clinicians to be skilled in engaging their clients and implementing person‐centred practices that promote engagement within clinical settings. It is necessary to recognize that client and provider interactions (and thus engagement) are embedded in and influenced by the broader healthcare system. With this in mind, a patient‐centred approach to engagement in aphasia care delivery cannot be achieved through individual efforts only and may require prioritization and action at the systems level. Future work is needed to explore barriers and facilitators to enacting engagement practices, in order to develop and test strategies to support practice change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Use of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) has been essential to the success of the Massachusetts Hemovigilance Program and has allowed for the timely identification of signals and trends over a defined population that correlate with national and international hemovigilance (HV) data. Here, we outline how the NHSN system is used for monitoring HV data in Massachusetts and encourage adoption of NHSN for nationwide HV surveillance. Study Design and Methods: A collaboration that grew over time between local HV stakeholders and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) resulted in the change from a paper‐based method of reporting adverse reactions and monthly transfusion activity for compliance with state requirements to replacement with statewide adoption of reporting via NHSN. Results: Over 1.5 million blood products were transfused in Massachusetts between 2017 and 2021, with 3000 adverse reactions among 10 defined types reported. Using NHSN, MDPH has been able to produce numerous reports, publications, and presentations that have made previously non‐obtainable HV and blood utilization data available. Discussion: Although limitations to these self‐reported data exist, such as lack of external validation, successful statewide implementation of NHSN for hospital blood bank reporting is possible and has benefits beyond those for regulatory oversight. It results in standardized, actionable data at both the hospital and state level, enabling inter‐facility comparisons, benchmarking, and opportunities for practice improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Dental fear and anxiety are known determinants of delaying or avoiding dental care and vary considerably based on factors such as age and gender. However, little is known about dental fear and anxiety in racial/ethnic minority populations, which bear a disproportionate burden of poor oral health outcomes. Structural and social pathways responsible for producing these disparities are also understudied. Experiences of racism over the lifecourse may contribute to poor oral health outcomes through a pathway of dental fear and anxiety. This paper aimed to evaluate perceived experiences with racism, dental fear and anxiety, and the utilization of dental services, in the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS), a United States‐based prospective cohort. Methods: Analysis of prospective data obtained from a geographic subset of participants in the BWHS was conducted. In 2014, BWHS participants residing in Massachusetts responded to a mailed oral health questionnaire that included the Index of Dental Anxiety and Fear (IDAF‐4C+) instrument (N = 484; 69% response rate). Previously collected demographic and health information, along with reported experiences of everyday and lifetime racism, obtained from national BWHS questionnaires between 1995 and 2009, were merged with the Massachusetts‐based sub‐sample. Associations between high dental anxiety (HDA) (mean IDAF‐4C+ score ≥2.5 on the dental fear and anxiety module) and oral health outcomes and perceived racism and HDA were explored via prevalence ratios (PR) calculated using log‐binomial regression models, including adjustment for potential confounders. Results: Reported exposures to everyday racism occurred weekly on average for the top 25% of the sample, while 13% of participants reported exposure to multiple (n = 3) experiences of unfair treatment due to their race over their lifetime. HDA was prevalent among 17.8% of the sample and was significantly associated with indicators of poor oral health status. High exposures to everyday and lifetime experiences of racism were positively associated with HDA (PR = 1.08; 95% CI: 0.90, 1.58 and PR = 1.72; 95% CI: 1.03, 2.88, respectively). Conclusions: Significant associations between racism and HDA, and between HDA and poor oral health and reduced utilization of dental care were observed. Dental anxiety may be a pathway through which perceived experiences with racism may impact oral health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]