Search

This study describes the development of structure indicators for hospital antimicrobial stewardship programmes and pilot validation across European hospitals. A multi-disciplinary panel from four European countries developed structure indicators in three steps: identification and listing of indicators, remote ranking of indicators using multi-criteria scoring, selection of indicators in a face-to-face consensus meeting. Additionally, the top-ten indicators were identified as a minimal set of key indicators. A survey was sent to the directors of antimicrobial stewardship programmes in European hospitals. The yes/no answers for the indicators were transformed into numbers in order to calculate the total scores. A list of 58 indicators was selected and categorised into the following topics: antimicrobial stewardship services (12 items), tools (16 items), human resources and mandate (6 items), health care personnel development (4 items), basic diagnostic capabilities (6 items), microbiological rapid tests (2 items), evaluation of microbiological drug resistance data (3 items), antibiotic consumption control (5 items) and drug use monitoring (4 items). The indicator scores, reported by 11 pilot hospitals from five European countries, ranged from 32 to 50 (maximum score = 58) and from 5 to 10 points (maximum score = 10) for, respectively, the complete and the top-ten list. An international panel selected 58 potential structure indicators, among which was a minimal set of ten key structure indicators, that could be useful for assessment of the comprehensiveness and resource-intensity of antimicrobial stewardship programmes. There was significant heterogeneity among participating centres with regard to their score for structural components of effective antimicrobial stewardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the study Benchmarking Regional Health Management II suggest that compulsory measles immunisation is a good practice in public health management. Yet, the potential achievement of the desired health outcome alone is not a sufficient reason to make the immunisation obligatory. Rather, compulsory measles immunisation is a morally challenging measure. In this article, compulsory measles immunisation is critically evaluated from a public health ethics point of view. For this evaluation, a set of ethical criteria is proposed: respect for autonomy, health maximisation, efficiency, proportionality and social justice. The authors suggest it should not be taken for granted that compulsory measles immunisation should be championed, rather, health policy makers in the European Union should try to raise immunisation rates with non-compulsory means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To demonstrate the challenges of interpreting cross-country comparisons of paediatric asthma hospital admission rates as an indicator of primary care quality., Methods: We used hospital administrative data from >10 million children aged 6-15 years, resident in Austria, England, Finland, Iceland, Ontario (Canada), Sweden or Victoria (Australia) between 2008 and 2015. Asthma hospital admission and emergency department (ED) attendance rates were compared between countries using Poisson regression models, adjusted for age and sex., Results: Hospital admission rates for asthma per 1000 child-years varied eight-fold across jurisdictions. Admission rates were 3.5 times higher when admissions with asthma recorded as any diagnosis were considered, compared with admissions with asthma as the primary diagnosis. Iceland had the lowest asthma admission rates; however, when ED attendance rates were considered, Sweden had the lowest rate of asthma hospital contacts., Conclusions: The large variations in childhood hospital admission rates for asthma based on the whole child population reflect differing definitions, admission thresholds and underlying disease prevalence rather than primary care quality. Asthma hospital admissions among children diagnosed with asthma is a more meaningful indicator for inter-country comparisons of primary care quality.

We surveyed the populations of 19 European countries to compare the prevalence of antimicrobial drug self-medication in the previous 12 months and intended self-medication and storage and to identify the associated demographic characteristics. By using a multistage sampling design, 1,000-3,000 adults in each country were randomly selected. The prevalence of actual self-medication varied from 1 to 210 per 1,000 and intended self-medication from 73 to 449 per 1,000; both rates were high in eastern and southern Europe and low in northern and western Europe. The most common reasons for self-medication were throat symptoms (e.g., dry, inflamed, red, or sore throat, inflamed tonsils, tonsil pain). The main medication sources were pharmacies and medication leftover from previous prescriptions. Younger age, higher education, and presence of a chronic disease were associated with higher rates of self-medication. Attempts to reduce inappropriate self-medication should target prescribers, pharmacists, and the general public.

This paper presents reference frameworks which order effective and feasible policies and interventions for the health management of measles, breast cancer and diabetes (type II). These reference frameworks can be used to rapidly appraise regional health policy documents and existing health management systems. Furthermore, the reference frameworks can serve health policy makers for the planning of health management measures.

Documentation is key to quality assurance (QA): Data must be complete, plausible, and comparable, and then analyzed to implement corrective measures. Important factors are: qualification of care-providing staff, equipment and implants available (structural quality), effective scheduling of operations and therapy management (process quality), and patient status monitoring (outcome quality). The primary aim is to reveal deficits in process quality and develop and implement improvements in care. QA does not aim at exposing individual mistakes or flawed techniques; rather it is designed to analyze processes and treatments and implement specific solutions. An evaluation profile with the key quality indicators and a QA guideline is presented. A survey conducted in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland revealed: (1) up to 12-month waiting period for surgery in 6%, (2) only 40% written instructions, (3) data mostly written by hand, (4) differences in surgery planning and use of prosthesis passport, (6) inconsistent data analysis, (7) corrective measures rarely implemented.

The revision of the federal hospital act (Nov. 11, 1993; BGB1 Nr. 801/93) intends the introduction of an internal quality control as well as comparisons between different hospitals. For the application fo these constitutional requirements, the state governments had to develop laws being the basis for the hospital management to implement quality assurance. To support the introduction of a systematic quality control, the federal ministry of health published a guideline for quality assurance which was made available to all hospitals. Now, a questionnaire in all Austrian hospitals was designed to evaluate the progress and the specific ways of implementations as well as the possible need for action in the future.

Background: To evaluate the level of documentation as an instrument of ongoing quality management in arthroplasty, a questionnaire was created on this subject, which concentrated on structural and process indicators., Methods: A total of 908 questionnaires was sent to orthopedic and trauma departments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and were evaluated anonymously., Results: The quota of return was 54% in Switzerland, 47% in Austria and 25% in Germany. The waiting period for an arthroplasty is much less in Switzerland and in Germany than in Austria. Only 40% of patients receive forms for informed consent. Documentation is seldomly standardized thus making comparison virtually impossible. Surgical planning is usually done with templates in Germany and Austria, in Switzerland with drawings. Prosthesis passports are predominately used by orthopedic departments. The data regarding complication rates and infections are not analyzed at regular intervals (max. 30%) and corrective measures are rarely implemented., Conclusion: Documentation is the basic instrument of quality management and requires completeness (totality) and plausibility of the datas. It is of great importance that evaluated data are analyzed and consequences are taken. The primary aim of quality assurance is to identify problems that adversely affect quality in order to develop and implement process sequences for the improvement of patient care and management.

Benefits of comparative data analysis for quality assurance and policy development are clear, but are difficult to establish through traditional means of prospective projects. This paper describes a pilot project to test an alternative method, namely seeking to identify areas of commonality amongst very different pre-existing data sets to provide a starting point. Advantages and disadvantages of this method, together with the critical factors identified in the pilot study, are described. Whilst developed in child health, the lessons learned are relevant for any other client groups.