Medicare items were introduced in 2005 to encourage general practitioners (GPs) to involve other healthcare providers in the management of patients with chronic disease. However, there appears to be barriers to converting financial incentives and the use of information technology as a communication tool to better patient outcomes. The aim of this study was to explore these barriers from the perspectives of practice nurses and allied health practitioners. Three focus groups were held, comprising a convenience sample of 10 practice nurses and 17 allied health professionals from south-east Melbourne. Findings were reported under five themes: (1) attitudes and beliefs, (2) communication using care planning documents, (3) electronic communication, (4) care planning and collaboration between healthcare professionals and (5) ongoing challenges. While allied professionals use care planning tools, there is confusion about the extent to which these tools are for the GPs to provide structured care to assist with communication or funding mechanisms for allied health services. Further research is needed on the contributions of these groups to the care planning process and how communication and collaboration between healthcare professionals can be strengthened.
Communication ; Patient Care Planning

Digital technology is a new trend in implant dentistry and oral medical technology. Stereolithographic surgical guides, which are computer-guided implant placement, have been introduced gradually to the market. Surgeons are attracted to this approach because of it features visualized preoperative planning, simple surgical procedure, flapless implant, and immediate restoration. However, surgeons are concerned about the accuracy and complications of this approach. This review aims to introduce the classification of computer-guided implant placement. The advantages, disadvantages, and accuracy of this approach are also analyzed. Moreover, factors that may affect the outcomes of computer-guided implant placement are determined. Results will provide a reference to surgeons regarding the clinical application of this approach.
Dental Implantation, Endosseous ; Patient Care Planning ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted

PURPOSE: The purposes of this study were to identify knowledge, health belief and compliance in patients with hypertension and to identify the most important predictors for compliance of hypertensive patient. METHOD: The participants in this study were 117 patients who were receiving treatment for hypertension at E. university hospital or one of three local clinics in D-city. Data were collected using a knowledge measurement instrument, health belief scale, and an instrument on compliance. Collected data were analyzed using chi2 test, ANOVA, multiple linear regression with PASW statistics 18.0 program. RESULTS: There were statistically significantly positive correlations between knowledge of hypertension and health belief, health belief and compliance. But there was no correlation between knowledge of hypertension and compliance. In the multiple regression analysis, perceived barriers, perceived severity, perceived benefits were significant predictors to explain compliance and accounted for 54.1% of the variance in compliance. CONCLUSION: The results of the study indicate that health belief and compliance are significantly strongly correlated. Thus it is suggested that nursing interventions to improve compliance should include nursing care plans to increase health belief, perceived severity, perceived benefit and to decrease perceived barrier.
Compliance ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Linear Models ; Patient Care Planning

As primary care physicians, we diagnose and give the appropriate cure for every disease; but as family medicine specialists, we are best at doing more. We treat not only the disease but also identify the biopsychosocial needs of the patients and their families, highlighting family functions and psychodynamics through the course of an illness. One of the challenging aspects is providing care for a terminally ill elderly patient. We cannot avoid the initial experience of equating cancer with death, evoking anxiety and depression to the patient and the family. In these circumstances, our specialty plays a greater role in providing understanding, guidance and support in the multidimensional realms of end-of-life. It is through physical, psychosocial and spiritual preparedness that one is able to respond and accept death as a reality. This family case management report aims to present the biomedical and psychosocial care to a dying patient and her family. Specifically, it aims to: a) determine the needs of the cancer patient using the biopsychosocial model, b) analyze the family psychodynamics, impact of illness, and their functional adaptation to unexpected changes using the S-T-F-R-E-D system, c) discuss the terminal phase and quality of death of the patient using the hospice care approach and d) define, review, and present bereavement and bereavement care rendered to the family.
Human ; Female ; Aged ; Attitude To Death ; Death ; Patient Care Planning ; Family

With the development of social economy, people's lifestyle has changed accompanied with the problem of population aging. The spectrum of disease also varied accordingly, thus led to complicated and varied wound aetiology, along with the formation of innumerably changed acute and chronic wounds. Therefore, it is hard to meet the requirement of multidisciplinary knowledge and technique in the diagnosis and treatment of some extraordinary agent wound with a single discipline. The extraordinary agent wound is caused by some uncommon or rare etiological factors, the specialty of which lays on the unique mechanism of wound formation, and a lot of disciplines were involved in the diagnosis and management of the wound. A unification of multiple disciplines is needed to integrate the relevant theory and technique to care the wound by giving consideration of the symptom and the aetiology. The primary diseases which induced the uncommon agent wound should be targeted and treated effectively; meanwhile, a comprehensive treatment combined with multiple new wound management techniques should be carried out to realize the objective of precise treatment.
Cooperative Behavior ; Humans ; Interdisciplinary Communication ; Patient Care Planning ; Patient Care Team ; organization & administration ; Wounds and Injuries ; therapy

In Korea, the Hospice, Palliative Care, and Life-sustaining Treatment Decision-making Act was enacted in February 2016 in order to ensure that the patient's self-determination in end-of-life care processes is respected. To enhance physicians' understanding of this act and to provide proper criteria for medical judgment in variety of clinical settings, consensus guidelines were published in November 2016. In this article, the characteristics of these guidelines and related issues regarding the definitions of ‘the end stage of disease’ and ‘last days of life’ and the criteria for medical judgment are presented and summarized. According to the guidelines, the term ‘end stage of disease’ refers to a state in which there is no possibility of a fundamental recovery and the symptoms are expected to worsen within months. The terms ‘the last days of life’ and ‘the final days of life’ refer to a state in which, despite treatment, the patient's condition is worsening and death is impending, with no possibility of recovery. The attending physician and another relevant specialist should both judge a patient's medical condition as either ‘end stage of disease’ for hospice/palliative care or ‘the last days of life’ for dying patient care according to the law. Caregivers should provide appropriate medical information to eligible patients for palliative or ‘end stage of disease’ care through advance care planning. Therefore, it is critically necessary that caregivers understand the legitimate process of hospice/palliative and dying patient care based on the patient's wishes and best interests. Physicians should apply these consensus guidelines to eligible patients considering their clinical course and the patients' wishes.
Advance Care Planning ; Caregivers ; Consensus ; Hospices ; Humans ; Judgment ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Palliative Care ; Patient Care ; Specialization

Although the extraordinary agent wound is not common, the difficulties of its diagnosis, treatment, and the high medical risk as well as the indeterminacy of its prognosis bring great challenges to the clinicians. It is mainly attributed to the complexities of extraordinary agent wounds and the deficiency in the assessment technic of wound. Therefore, it is necessary and important to establish a precise assessment method to benefit the surgical planning, pre-estimation of peri-operative risk, and the doctor-patient communication. Based on the relative scientific research and our recent clinical research data, we bring forth our opinions on the current status and the development trend of the assessment of extraordinary agent wounds in this article.
Humans ; Patient Care Planning ; Physician-Patient Relations ; Risk Assessment ; Wounds and Injuries ; surgery

PURPOSE: This study was performed to explore the preference for care near the end-of-life of nurses who had been working in an acute hospital. s METHODS: Data were collected by using PCEOL-K which was originally developed in U.S. and standardized into Korean version. Two hundred nurses from one acute hospital who agreed to participate in the study filled out questionnaires and 177 questionnaires were analyzed for the study results. RESULTS: Relatively positive preference toward spirituality and pain control and negative preference toward decision making by health care professional were uncovered. CONCLUSION: Nurses consider patient's autonomy, pain control and spirituality as important factors at the end-of-life care. Further studies regarding the preference for the care near the end-of-life of diverse groups such as patients, doctors, and family members are called for.
Advance Care Planning ; Decision Making ; Delivery of Health Care ; Humans ; Patient Preference ; Spirituality ; Surveys and Questionnaires

In this study, we developed MobileNurseTM; a prototype of mobile nursing information system using PDA. MobileNurseTM is designed to communicate with hospital information system(HIS) via mobile support station(MSS) which interchanges and stores clinical data. MobileNurseTM consists of 3 components. The first component is medical order checking module. It enables nurses to retrieve patients' information such as physicians' orders and test results at anywhere or anytime. The second component is nursing recording module which helps nurses to record the results of their practices at bedside. On the autosynchronization of MSS and PDA, the data in PDA and MSS can be interchanged and updated respectively. The last component is nursing unit care planing module. It is helpful for retrieving the nursing care plans of patients that are expected to be done, such as patients' discharge, consultation, or transfer. With use of PDA in clinical environment, nurses can spend more time on caring for patients by reducing time-consuming, redundant paperwork. It is promising that this 'point-of-care system enables nurses to improve the quality of nursing care.
Humans ; Information Systems* ; Nursing Care ; Nursing Records ; Nursing* ; Patient Care Planning

PURPOSE: The study assessed whether nurse staffing was associated with 3 nursing sensitive outcomes used in intensive care unit (ICU) nursing care plans. METHOD: This study was a retrospective and descriptive study using clinical data extracted from the data warehouse of a large acute care hospital in the Midwest. One-way analysis of variance was used to analyze the records of 578 ICU patients admitted from March 25 to May 31, 2010. RESULTS: 79 Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) outcomes were used in the nursing care plans. The 3 most commonly used NOC outcomes (Pain Level, Infection Severity, and Tissue Integrity: Skin and Mucous Membranes) were analyzed to determine their relationship to nurse staffing. As a nurse staffing ratio, the skill mix of nursing caregivers ranged from 0.74 to 1 with an average of 0.90. This skill mix of nursing caregivers significantly differed among the changes in Infection Severity scores. However, the mean difference was only 0.02. CONCLUSION: The results did not support that greater nurse staffing was associated with better outcomes. More research is still needed to determine the usefulness of Pain Level, Infection Severity, and Tissue Integrity: Skin and Mucous Membranes in evaluating the impact of nurse staffing.
Caregivers ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units ; Mucous Membrane ; Nursing Care ; Nursing Staff ; Patient Care Planning ; Retrospective Studies ; Skin