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Patient safety is a crucial element of quality healthcare, and endeavours to enhance it are vital for attaining universal health coverage and improving patient outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the perception of patient safety culture among staff at the Community Health Centre Ljubljana (CHCL).

Telemonitoring improves clinical outcomes in patients with arterial hypertension (AH) and type 2 diabetes (T2D), however, cost structure analyses are lacking. This study seeks to explore the cost structure of telemonitoring for the elderly with AH and T2D in primary care and identify factors influencing costs for potential future expansions.

The introduction of interprofessional primary care (IPC) as a model of collaborative patient care is increasingly vital in the context of complex healthcare systems and the growing needs of patients. Its benefits include improved patient outcomes, enhanced efficiency, and reduced costs. However, the successful implementation of IPC faces challenges due to the differences in training and backgrounds among healthcare professionals, emphasising the importance of effective teamwork and collaborative education.

Healthcare systems collect little information about the experiences and outcomes of care from the perspectives of patients. Patient Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS) is an OECD initiative to measure the outcomes and experiences of people living with chronic conditions, who are managed in primary care.

Arterial hypertension and type 2 diabetes are significant contributors to global non-communicable disease-related mortality. Integrated care, centred on person-centred principles, aims to enhance healthcare quality and access, especially for vulnerable populations. This study investigates integrated care for these diseases in Slovenia, providing a comprehensive analysis of facilitators and barriers influencing scalability.

Although anxiety and depression are important determinants of mental health, the literature in this area is sparse as most studies focus on the period during treatment. Mental health problems can affect cancer recovery as well as quality of life and survival. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the prevalence of anxiety and depression in Slovenian cancer survivors after treatment and assessed the associated correlates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in scientific publications, some of which have bypassed the usual peer-review processes, leading to an increase in unsupported claims being referenced. Therefore, the need for references in scientific articles is increasingly being questioned. The practice of relying solely on quantitative measures, such as impact factor, is also considered inadequate by many experts. This can lead to researchers choosing research ideas that are likely to generate favourable metrics instead of interesting and important topics. Evaluating the quality and scientific value of articles requires a rethinking of current approaches, with a move away from purely quantitative methods.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and arterial hypertension (AH) are among the greatest challenges facing health systems worldwide and require comprehensive patient-centred care. The key to successful management in chronic patients is self-management support, which was found to be only weakly implemented in Slovenia. The aim of the study is to develop an evidence-based model of peer support for people with T2D and AH at the primary healthcare level in Slovenia, which could represent a potential solution for upgrading integrated care for these patients.

Although the concept of integrated care for non-communicable diseases was introduced at the primary level to move from disease-centered to patient-centered care, it has only been partially implemented in European countries. The aim of this study was to identify and compare identified facilitators and barriers to scale-up this concept between Slovenia and Belgium.

Patient safety is one of the key aspects of healthcare quality and a serious global public health concern. Patient safety culture is a part of the patient safety concept. In Slovenia, primary care is easily accessible, and for medical care, it serves as a gatekeeper to hospital care. For several years, the quality and safety at the primary healthcare level have been the focus of several studies. The present study aimed to assess patient safety culture among all employees of the Community Health Centre Ljubljana.

For the purpose of celebrating the 40th anniversary of Alma Ata declaration, the WHO published a successful model of integrated patient care being performed in Slovenia. After two years, the WHO experts evaluated the success in practise during a visit to the Slovenian primary care environment. This report showed that Slovenia was a notable exception regarding developing effective primary care systems. The country has an impressive primary care which performs very well.

Family history (FH) is an important part of the patients’ medical history during preventive management at model family medicine practices (MFMP). It currently includes a one (or two) generational inquiry, predominately in terms of cardiovascular diseases, arterial hypertension, and diabetes, but not of other diseases with a probable genetic aetiology. Beside family history, no application-based algorithm is available to determine the risk level for specific chronic diseases in Slovenia.

An effective leadership is critical to the development of a safety culture within an organization. With this study, the authors wanted to assess the self-perceived level of safety culture among the employees with a leadership function in the Ljubljana Community Health Centre.

The easy access to data from electronic patient records has made using this type of data in pay-for-performance systems increasingly common. General practitioners (GPs) throughout Europe oppose this for several reasons. Not all data can be used to derive good quality indicators and quality indicators can’t reflect the broad scope of primary care. Qualities like person-centred care and continuity are particularly difficult to measure. The indicators urge doctors and nurses to spend too much time on the registration and administration of required data. However, quality indicators can be very useful as starting points for discussions about quality in primary care, with the purpose being to initiate, stimulate and support local improvement work. This led to The European Society for Quality and Patient Safety in General Practice (EQuiP) feeling the urge to clarify the different aspects of quality indicators by updating their statement on measuring quality in Primary Care. The statement has been endorsed by the Wonca Europe Council in 2018.

A new form of family practices was introduced in 2011 through a pilot project introducing nurse practitioners as members of team and determining a set of quality indicators. The aim of this article was to assess the quality of diabetes and hypertension management.

Patient safety culture is a concept which describes how leader and staff interaction, attitudes, routines and practices protect patients from adverse events in healthcare. We aimed to investigate patient safety culture in Slovenian out-of-hours health care (OOHC) clinics, and determine the possible factors that might be associated with it.

The aim of our systematic review was to analyse the published literature on the psychosocial dimension of care in family medicine and its relationship with quality of care. We wanted to find out whether there is any evidence on the psychosocial approach in (family) medicine. The recommended bio-psycho-social approach, besides the biomedical model of illness, takes into account several co-influencing psychological, sociological and existential factors. An online search of nine different databases used Boolean operators and the following selection criteria: the paper contained information on the holistic approach, quality indicators, family medicine, patient-centred care and/or the bio-psycho-social model of treatment. We retrieved 743 papers, of which 36 fulfilled our inclusion criteria. Including the psychosocial dimension in patient management has been found to be useful in the prevention and treatment of physical and psychiatric illness, resulting in improved social functioning and patient satisfaction, reduced health care disparities, and reduced annual medical care charges. The themes of patient-centred, behavioural or psychosocial medicine were quite well presented in several papers. We could not find any conclusive evidence of the impact of a holistic biopsycho-social-approach. Weak and variable definitions of psychosocial dimensions, a low number of welldesigned intervention studies, and low numbers of included patients limited our conclusions.

Namen. Namen raziskave je bil ugotoviti, kateri bolezenski simptomi se najpogosteje pojavljajo pri odraslem prebivalstvu Slovenije in določiti njihovo prevalenco in dejavnike, ki nanjo vplivajo. Metode. Raziskava je bila presečna opazovalna in je potekala s pomočjo računalniško podprtega telefonskega anketiranja - CATI. Vključena sta bila 1002 prebivalca, stara med 15 in 90 let. Telefonski intervju je zajemal vprašanja o pojavnosti 23 bolezenskih simptomov, njihovem trajanju in o demografskih podatkih. Izsledki. Slovensko prebivalstvo ima najpogosteje težave z bolečinami v hrbtenici (409 oseb - 40,8 %), bolečinami v sklepih (334 oseb - 33,4 %), s prekomerno utrujenostjo (308 oseb - 30,7 %), z živčnostjo (285 oseb - 28,4 %), glavobolom (280 oseb - 27,9 %), razdražljivostjo (261 oseb - 26,1 %) in z nespečnostjo (259 oseb - 25,8 %). Statistično pogosteje so se bolezenski simptomi pojavljali pri ženskah, starejših, nižje izobraženih, ljudeh z nižjim osebnim dohodkom, nezaposlenih, upokojenih in tistih z znano kronično boleznijo. Neodvisna napovedna dejavnika za prisotnost vsaj enega bolezenskega simptoma sta ženski spol in prisotnost kronične bolezni. Sklepi. Slovensko prebivalstvo je znatno obremenjeno z bolezenskimi simptomi, saj 77,3 % vprašanih bremeni vsaj en bolezenski simptom. Raziskava je odkrila skupine prebivalstva, ki so bolezenskim simptomom še posebej podvržene (ženske, starejši, kronični bolniki, ljudje z nižjim socioekonomskim statusom) in katerim bi morala biti namenjena še posebna pozornost na ravni primarnega zdravstvenega varstva in preventivne dejavnosti

Namen: Izvesti medkulturno prilagoditev vprašalnika o samoocenjevanju kompetenc zdravnika družinske medicina na področju izboljševanju kakovosti (vprašalnik QICS) in ga validirati na reprezentativnem vzorcu slovenskih zdravnikov družinske medicine.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, family physicians (FPs) served as the the initial point of contact for patients potentially infected with the virus, necessitating frequent updates to treatment protocols. However, practices also faced organizational challenges in providing care to other patients who also needed their medical attention. The pressure on FPs increased and affected their well-being. The international PRICOV-19 study, titled "Primary care in times of COVID-19 pandemic," investigated how FPs functioned during the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article examines the correlation between various organizational and structural COVID-19-related variables and the well-being of FPs in Slovenia. Methods: Between October 2020 and January 2021, we conducted an online cross-sectional survey. The questionnaire was distributed to 1040 Slovenian FPs and 218 family medicine (FM) trainees. Part of the questionnaire assessed the cooperation and well-being of FPs. The Mayo Clinic Well-being Index was used for the assessment. FP's well-being was also assessed descriptively by asking open-ended questions about maintaining mental health during the pandemic. Potential factors associated with FPs' well-being were identified using a multivariate linear regression method. Results: The final sample comprised 191 participants (response rate 14.1%). The mean value ± standard deviation of the Mayo Well-being Index was 3.3 ± 2.6 points. The FPs with the poorest well-being had 5–15 years of work experience and worked in a practice where work could not be distributed in the absence of a co-worker without compromising the well-being of colleagues. Physical activity was identified as the most common method of maintaining mental health among FPs. Conclusions: The results of the study suggest that targeted interventions are needed to support FPs mid-career, increase resilience in practice, promote strong team dynamics, and prioritise physical activity in healthcare. Addressing these aspects can contribute to the well-being of individual FPs and the overall health of the healthcare workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Telemonitoring has been proposed as an effective method to support integrated care for older people with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. This paper examines acceptability of telemontioring, its role in supporting integrated care, and identifies scale-up barriers. Methods: A concurrent triangulation mixed-methods study, including in-depth interviews (n = 29) and quantitative acceptability tool (n = 55) was conducted among individuals who underwent a 12-month telemonitoring routine. The research was guided by the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability. Interviews were analysed using template content analysis (TCA). Results: TCA identified seven domains of acceptability, with twenty-one subthemes influencing it positively or negatively. In the quantitative survey, acceptability was high across all seven domains with an overall score of 4.4 out of 5. Urban regions showed higher acceptability than rural regions (4.5 vs. 4.3), with rural participants perceiving initial training and participation effort as significantly more burdensome than their urban counterparts. Discussion: Patients described several instances where telemonitoring supported self-management, education, treatment, and identification elements of the integrated care package. However, there were barriers that may limit its further scale-up. Conclusion: For further scale-up, it is important to screen patients for monitoring eligibility, adapt telemonitoring devices to elderly needs, combine telemonitoring with health education, involve family members, and establish follow-up programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]