Non-technical skill (NTS) in gastrointestinal surgeon is an important part of surgical performance and surgical education. NTS is essential for safe and effective surgery. NTS has four aspects: situation awareness, decision making, communication and teamwork, and leadership. There is evidence that training and assessment of NTS of professional physicians is very important for doctors' career and plays an important role in improving medical quality and ensuring patient safety. The training and assessment of NTS is a great reference to the training of gastrointestinal surgeons in China. In addition, the establishment of a training system for professional gastrointestinal surgeons in line with China's characteristic as soon as possible will improve the overall quality of professional gastrointestinal surgeons in China and better serve the vast number of patients.
Attitude of Health Personnel ; China ; Clinical Competence ; Clinical Decision-Making ; Communication ; Gastrointestinal Diseases ; surgery ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Patient Care Team ; standards ; Quality of Health Care ; standards ; Specialties, Surgical ; standards ; Surgeons ; standards

Critical care medicine is a relatively young, fast-growing discipline, but it also bears the burden of heavy life. In the past 10 years, critical care medicine has made rapid progress. It has been growing to be mature and complete, its environment and equipment have been improved, and the technical ability has been continuously upgraded. However, the rapid improvement and the diversification of management modes have also brought about some concerns about medical quality. Xinyang Central Hospital is a large prefecture-grade tertiary-class A general hospital in Henan Province. As the director of the department of critical care medicine and the discipline leader of critical care medicine in Xinyang City, the author shared his opinion about how to establish a "standardized, institutionalized and procedural" management model from the perspective of department management in order to ensure medical quality and safety. We should "start from the quality control of critical care medicine, implement the concept of critical care through ward rounds, supervise the quality from the self-examination and self-correction of adverse events", in order to establish a management system for critical care patients and lay a foundation for improving medical quality and sustainable developing of critical care medicine.
China ; Critical Care/standards* ; Hospitals, General ; Humans ; Quality of Health Care ; Tertiary Care Centers

Precision medicine became the key strategy in development priority of science and technology in China. The large population-based cohorts become valuable resources in preventing and treating major diseases in the population, which can contribute scientific evidence for personalized treatment and precise prevention. The fundamental question of the achievements above, therefore, is how to construct a large population-based cohort in a standardized way. The Chinese Preventive Medicine Association co-ordinated experienced researchers from Peking University and other well-known institutes to write up two group standards Technical specification of data processing for large population-based cohort study (T/CPMA 001-2018) and Technical specification of data security for large population-based cohort study (T/CPMA 002-2018), on data management. The standards are drafted with principles of emphasizing their scientific, normative, feasible, and generalizable nature. In these two standards, the key principles are proposed, and technical specifications are recommended in data standardization, cleansing, quality control, data integration, data privacy protection, and database security and stability management in large cohort studies. The standards aim to guide the large population-based cohorts that have been or intended to be established in China, including national cohorts, regional population cohorts, and special population cohorts, hence, to improve domestic scientific research level and the international influence, and to support decision-making and practice of disease prevention and control.
China ; Cohort Studies ; Delivery of Health Care ; Humans ; Population Surveillance ; Quality Control ; Reference Standards

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the quality and consistency of recommendations in the clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for hypertension in Chinese medicine (CM).

METHODSCM CPGs were identified from 5 electronic databases and hand searches through related handbooks published from January 1990 to December 2013. Three reviewers independently appraised the CPGs based on the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) instrument, and compared the CPGs' recommendations on CM syndrome pattern classification and treatment.

RESULTSFive CM CPGs for hypertension were included. The quality score of the evidence-based (EB) guideline was higher than those of the consensus-based with no explicit consideration of evidence-based (CB-EB) and the consensus-based (CB) guidelines. Three out of five patterns in the CPGs were recommended by the EB guideline. Tianma Gouteng Formula () in the EB guideline was recommended mostly for hypertension patients with pattern of ascendant hyperactivity of Gan (Liver)-yang and pattern of yin deficiency with yang hyperactivity in the CPGs. Acupuncture and massage were recommended for Grade I and Grade II hypertension with severe symptoms weakening the quality of life in the EB guideline. For Grade I and Grade II hypertension, CM could be used alone, while for Grade III hypertension, they should be used in combination with Western medicines.

CONCLUSIONThe quality of EB guideline was higher than those of CB and CB-EB CPGs in CM for hypertension and CM should be prescribed alone or combined with Western medicines based on the grade of hypertension.

Humans ; Hypertension ; therapy ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; standards ; Practice Guidelines as Topic ; standards ; Quality Assurance, Health Care ; Quality of Health Care ; standards ; Quality of Life

This paper introduced the Revised Tool for the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2), including the development and comparison with the original QUADAS, and illustrated the application of QUADAS-2 in a published paper related to the study on diagnostic accuracy which was included in systematic review and Meta-analysis. QUADAS-2 presented considerable improvement over the original tool. Confused items that included in QUADAS had disappeared and the quality assessment of the original study replaced by the rating of risk on bias and applicability. This was implemented through the description on the four main domains with minimal overlapping and answering the signal questions in each domain. The risk of bias and applicability with 'high','low' or 'unclear' was in line with the risk of bias assessment of intervention studies in Cochrane, so to replace the total score of quality assessment in QUADAS. Meanwhile, QUADAS-2 was also applicable to assess the diagnostic accuracy studies in which follow-up without prognosis was involved in golden standard. It was useful to assess the overall methodological quality of the study despite more time consuming than the original QUADAS. However, QUADAS-2 needs to be modified to apply in comparative studies on diagnostic accuracy and we hope the users would follow the updates and give their feedbacks on line.
Bias ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine/standards* ; Humans ; Quality Assurance, Health Care ; Research Report ; Risk

Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) has been widely used in the world for near 20 years, which should be considered as the milestone of modern medicine advancement, changing the routine perioperative principle, accelerating the recovery speed following operation, minimizing the postoperative pain, and saving the medical resources. Despite the remarkable advance, the quality and application of ERAS in the west China needs further improvement if compared with international level or even some domestic hospitals. The postoperative hospital stay in west China is much longer than the reported 3 to 5 days according to published references. Several suggestions can be help: (1) Based on the published consensus and the successful experiences of ERAS in colorectal surgery, the medical institution should make great effort to extend this technique to change the profound traditional idea in medical staffs and patients. (2) The medical administrations should take the application of ERAS as a key performance index and annual work plan in hospital. (3) Multiple disciplinary team including anesthetist, surgeon, dietitian, and nurses is essential for hospital to promote the quality of ERAS. Undoubtedly, ERAS is going to be the conventional medical care in the western area of China. We may look forward to seeing more researches from western China to update the ERAS consensus.
China ; Clinical Competence ; Colorectal Surgery ; rehabilitation ; Consensus ; Digestive System Surgical Procedures ; rehabilitation ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Humans ; Length of Stay ; statistics & numerical data ; Patient Care Team ; standards ; trends ; utilization ; Personnel Administration, Hospital ; methods ; Postoperative Care ; methods ; psychology ; standards ; Postoperative Period ; Quality of Health Care ; standards ; trends

The Western China Gastric Cancer Collaboration (WCGCC) was founded in Chongqing, China in 2011. At the early stage of the collaboration, there were only about 20 centers. While now, there are 36 centers from western area of China, including Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Shanxi, Guizhou, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Ningxia and Tibet. During the past few years, the WCGCC organized routinely gastric cancer standardized treatment tours, training courses of mini-invasive surgical treatment of gastric cancer and the clinical research methodology for members of the collaboration. Meanwhile, the WCGCC built a multicenter database of gastric cancer since 2011 and the entering and management refer to national gastric cancer registration entering system of Japan Gastric Cancer Association. During the entering and collection of data, 190 items of data have unified definition and entering standard from Japan Gastric Cancer Guidelines. Nowadays, this database included about 11 872 gastric cancer cases, and in this paper we will introduce the initial results of these cases. Next, the collaboration will conduct some retrospective studies based on this database to analyze the clinicopathological characteristics of patients in the western area of China. Besides, the WCGCC performed a prospective study, also. The first randomized clinical trial of the collaboration aims to compare the postoperative quality of life between different reconstruction methods for total gastrectomy(WCGCC-1202, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02110628), which began in 2015, and now this study is in the recruitment period. In the next steps, we will improve the quality of the database, optimize the management processes. Meanwhile, we will engage in more exchanges and cooperation with the Chinese Cochrane Center, reinforce the foundation of the clinical trials research methodology. In aspect of standardized surgical treatment of gastric cancer, we will further strengthen communication with other international centers in order to improve both the treatment and research levels of gastric cancer in Western China.
Cancer Care Facilities ; China ; Clinical Protocols ; standards ; Clinical Trials as Topic ; methods ; standards ; Databases, Factual ; statistics & numerical data ; trends ; Education, Medical, Continuing ; Gastrectomy ; methods ; Humans ; Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures ; education ; Organizational Objectives ; Organizations ; statistics & numerical data ; trends ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Prospective Studies ; Quality of Life ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Registries ; statistics & numerical data ; Research Design ; standards ; Retrospective Studies ; Stomach Neoplasms ; epidemiology ; therapy

Colorectal cancer is a systemic disease that requires multidisciplinary treatment. The comprehensive quality of colorectal surgeon directly impacts on the efficacy of diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. Multidisciplinary teams help surgeons enhance their ability of evidence-based medicine, improve the quality of main specialty, expand the knowledge of other specialty, enhance the doctor-patient communication, and increase the research level. Thus, multidisciplinary teams can improve the comprehensive quality of colorectal surgeons.
Colorectal Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; therapy ; Colorectal Surgery ; Communication ; Evidence-Based Medicine ; methods ; Humans ; Interdisciplinary Communication ; Patient Care Team ; standards ; Physician-Patient Relations ; Quality of Health Care ; Surgeons ; standards

OBJECTIVETo survey the reporting quality of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) case reports published in recent years and understand the common problems. The assessment results would lay the foundation for the development of recommendations for case report in Chinese medicine.

METHODSThis survey determined the reporting quality of cases with Chinese herbal decoction, Chinese proprietary medicine, acupuncture, moxibustion and other traditional therapies published in 20 core medical journals of China by searching the China Academic Journals Full-text Database from 2006 to 2010. Fifty survey items in 16 domains were used to determine the reporting quality. One point was assigned to each item (Yes=1 point; No=0 point), and total score was 50 points. The domain of treatment was assessed independently, ranging from 2 to 9 items for different TCM interventions.

RESULTSThe total of 1,858 case reports, covering 3,417 cases were included to analyze from 13 out of 20 core medical journals of China. There were 74.8% of them did not identify the nature of study in title, while 73.9% did not comprise an abstract. Incomplete reporting was found in discussions/ comment, and only 38.9% had made recommendations or take-away messages. Figures and tables were infrequently used. Three cases cited the full names of patients, but without declaring that any consent was obtained. Over 90% reported the symptoms and signs of TCM, and characteristics on tongue and pulse, but less than 50% did mention other medical history and diagnostic rationale. More than 90% treatments of the included cases were herbal decoction, with clear reporting on the ingredients and dosages. However, the reporting rate of the dosages of each ingredient was just 48.4%. Almost none reported the quality control of crude herbs, manufacturers and lot numbers of herbal proprietary medicine. Besides, advices and precautions on diet, emotions and living were rare to be illustrated.

CONCLUSIONSystematic reporting recommendations are urged to develop for improving the contents and format of case reports in TCM.

Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Outcome Assessment (Health Care) ; Periodicals as Topic ; Quality Assurance, Health Care ; Research Report ; standards

BACKGROUND: The largest outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection outside Middle East Asia in 2015 has necessitated the rapid expansion of laboratories that conduct MERS-CoV molecular testing in Korea, together with external quality assessment (EQA) to evaluate the assays used. METHODS: The EQA program consisted of two phases; self-validation and blind assessment. For the first EQA phase, in vitro transcribed upstream region of the envelope gene (upE) and the open reading frame (ORF)1a RNAs were used at a concentration of 1,000 copies/microL. The test panel for the second EQA phase consisted of RNA extracts from three samples, which were obtained from two MERS-CoV positive patients and one MERS-CoV negative patient. RESULTS: The first EQA phase results for 46 participants showed a linear relationship between the threshold cycle (CT) values of RNA materials and the logarithmic concentrations for both upE and ORF1a gene targets (R2=0.73 and 0.75, respectively). The mean CT value for each concentration was different depending on which commercial kit was used for the assay. Among the three commonly used kits, PowerChek MERS Real-Time PCR kit (KogeneBiotech, Korea) showed the lowest CT values at all concentrations of upE and most concentrations of ORF1a. The second EQA phase results for 47 participants were 100% correct for all tested samples. CONCLUSIONS: This EQA survey demonstrates that the MERS-CoV molecular testing performed in Korea during the 2015 outbreak is of robust capability. However, careful establishment and validation of a cut-off value are recommended to ensure good analytical sensitivity.
Coronavirus Infections/*diagnosis/epidemiology/virology ; Disease Outbreaks ; Humans ; Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus/*genetics/isolation & purification ; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques/*standards ; Quality Assurance, Health Care ; RNA, Viral/analysis ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; Surveys and Questionnaires