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The purpose of this study is to identify best practices for innovative primary care models and to describe a potential future primary care (PC) model for Texas to address the burden of chronic disease in a population-based approach.

A systematic literature review was conducted and identified 1,880 published records through PubMed using 26 search terms. After abstract and full-text review, 70 articles remained as potential models.

Although there is already a severe shortage of physicians in Texas, emerging practice patterns and choices among physicians are likely to erode access to primary care services in the state. Health-care leaders are encouraged to consider models such as complex adaptive systems for team-based care, pharmacist hypertension care management program and combined nurse-led care management with group visit structure.

As with any study, this research has its limitations; for example, models that might work in one state, or under a unique state-funded academic medical center, might not be “do-able” in another state within the nuances of a different funding mechanism.

Results of this research provide a model for implementing IPCM for the state of Texas first and will guide IPCM planning and implementation in other states.

This study is “land grant-centric” and focused on carrying out the mission of a major, top-tier research university with an emerging college of medicine at an academic medical center.

The purpose of this paper is to explore different health care professionals’ discourse about privacy – its definition and importance in health care, and its role in their day-to-day work. Professionals’ discourse about privacy reveals how new technologies and laws challenge existing practices of information control within and between professional groups in health care, with implications not only for patient privacy, but also for the role of information control in professions more generally.

The authors conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with n=83 doctors, nurses, and health information professionals in two academic medical centers and one veteran’s administration hospital/clinic in the Northeastern USA. Interview responses were qualitatively coded for themes and patterns across groups were identified.

The health care providers and the authors studied actively sought to uphold the protection (and control) of patient information through professional ethics and practices, as well as through the use of technologies and compliance with legal regulations. They used discourses of professionalism, as well as of law and technology, to sometimes accept and sometimes resist changes to practice required in the changing technological and legal context of health care. The authors found differences across professional groups; for some, protection of patient information is part of core professional ethics, while for others it is simply part of their occupational work, aligned with organizational interests.

This qualitative study of physicians, nurses, and health information professionals revealed some differences in views and practices for protecting patient information in the changing technological and legal context of health care that suggest some professional groups (doctors) may be more likely to resist such changes and others (health information professionals) will actively adopt them.

New technologies and regulations are changing how information is used in health care delivery, challenging professional practices for the control of patient information that may change the value or meaning of medical records for different professional groups.

Qualitative findings suggest that professional groups in health care vary in the extent of information control they have, as well in how they view such control. Some groups may be more likely to (be able to) resist changes in the professional control of information that stem from new technologies or regulatory policies. Some professionals recognize that new IT systems and regulations challenge existing social control of information in health care, with the potential to undermine (or possibly bolster) professional self-control for some but not necessarily all occupational groups.

The paper aims to explore the nature of initiatives and strategies of inter-organizational cooperation to cross the valley of death in the biopharma industry.

The authors conducted an exploratory case study analysis in the Biopharma Innovation Ecosystem in Greater Boston Area (USA), which is one of the oldest, and most successful IE in the US, specialized in the Biopharma domain, by conducting a round of expert interviews with key informants in the area, chosen as representatives of the different types of actors engaged in the drug development processes at different stages.

Main findings suggest that cooperation can contribute to surviving the valley of death by reducing the barriers within the drug development pipeline through the promotion of strategic relationships among actors of different nature, including the establishment of government-led thematic associations or consortia, agreements between university and business support structures, proximity to venture capitalist and the promotion of a general culture of academic entrepreneurship within universities.

The authors believe that this paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the nature of the specific cooperative initiative the barriers in drug development and help to survive the valley of the death.