The suggestion that increased consultation length leads to improved patient satisfaction has some evidence, albeit uncertain. Importantly there are other determinants within the doctor-patient consultation that themselves may be responsible for this improved satisfaction and it is these we investigate in this paper. A systematic review of PubMed and associated papers was carried out using search terms ‘family practice consultation length’, ‘general practice consultation length’, ‘local health authority consultation length’ and ‘primary care consultation length’. 590 papers were originally selected using these search terms, post scoring this number became 9. The results obtained support the idea that consultation length does not directly improve consultation outcome, but rather there are variables integrated within the consultation affecting this. Increased time purely allows a physician to implement management, particularly relating to psychosocial aspects.
CONTEXT: Providing home care in the United States is expensive, and significant geographic variation exists in the utilization of these services. However, few data exist on how well physicians and home care providers communicate and coordinate care for patients.
OBJECTIVE: To assess communication and collaboration between primary care physicians (PCPs) and home care clinicians (HCCs) within 1 primary care network.
DESIGN: Mail survey.
SETTING: Boston.
PARTICIPANTS: Sixty‐seven PCPs from 1 academic medical center–affiliated primary care network and 820 HCCs from 8 regional home care agencies.
MEASUREMENTS: Provider responses
RESULTS: Ninety percent of PCPs and 63% of HCCs responded. The majority (54%) of PCPs reported that they only “rarely” or “occasionally” read carefully the home care order forms sent to them for signature. Further, when asked to rate their prospective involvement in the decision making about home care, only 24% of PCPs and 25% of HCCs rated this as “excellent” or “very good.” Although more HCCs (79%) than PCPs (47%) reported overall satisfaction with communication and collaboration, 28% of HCCs felt they provided more services to patients than clinically necessary.
CONCLUSIONS: PCPs from 1 provider network and the HCCs with whom they coordinate home care were both dissatisfied with many aspects of communication and collaboration regarding home care services. Moreover, neither group felt in control of home care decision making. These findings are of concern because poor coordination of home care may adversely affect quality and contribute to inappropriate utilization of these services.
Aims and objectives
To review interventions and strategies designed to progress UK clinical academic career pathways in nursing and identify barriers and facilitators to aid wider implementation.
Background
For over a decade, the UK political agenda has promoted the entry of nurses into clinical academic roles. Partnerships between the National Health Service and academia are known to increase nursing recruitment, retention and quality of care. However, there remains a lack of nurses working in these partnership roles.
Design
A systematised review was conducted. An electronic database search was carried out in PubMed, CINAHL, the British Nursing Database and PsychInfo for articles published between September 2006 to June 2020. A narrative approach to data synthesis was used, and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses guidelines were followed.
Results
Ten papers were included in the review. The authors reported a range of programmes, pathways and toolkits. Pathway outcome measures included numbers of nurses recruited onto clinical academic programmes, clinical academic programmes completed, nursing research outputs, impact on clinical practice and impact on nursing recruitment. Barriers and facilitators to pathway development included funding, clinical and research time constraints, infrastructure, strong and strategic clinical academic leadership and effective partnership working. The quality of the included studies was mixed; more high‐quality, evidence‐based programmes need to be developed and rigorously evaluated.
Conclusions
The findings can inform nursing clinical academic research pathway development internationally, by identifying key drivers for success. Sustained and cohesive implementation of clinical academic research pathways is lacking across the UK.
Relevance to Clinical Practice
Strong, strategic leadership is required to enable progression of clinical academic nursing research pathway opportunities. Clinical nursing practitioners need to collaborate with external partners to enable development of clinical academic pathways within the nursing profession; this can lead to improvements in patient care and high‐quality clinical outcomes.
Background
Web-based developmental surveillance programs may be an innovative solution to improving the early detection of childhood developmental difficulties, especially within disadvantaged populations.
Objective
This review aimed to identify the acceptability and effectiveness of web-based developmental surveillance programs for children aged 0 to 6 years.
Methods
A total of 6 databases and gray literature were searched using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses–informed protocol. Data extraction included variables related to health equity.
Results
In total, 20 studies were identified. Most papers implemented web-based versions of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised with Follow-Up screener for autism spectrum disorder or Parent Evaluation of Developmental Status screeners for broad developmental delay. Caregivers and practitioners indicated a preference for web-based screeners, primarily for user-friendliness, improved follow-up accuracy, time, and training efficiencies.
Conclusions
Although evidence is limited as to the necessity of web- versus face-to-face–based developmental screening, there are clear efficiencies in its use.
Trial Registration
PROSPERO CRD42019127894; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=127894
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