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The developing generic market has huge advantages of availability and affordability of therapy. The question of whether a therapeutic equivalent substitute under an unfamiliar name may cause confusion that leads to medical errors has not been sufficiently studied. This paper seeks to answer this question.

The study was triggered following sporadic reports according to which patients mistakenly consider therapeutic equivalents as unrelated medications rather than substitutes. Family physicians and pharmacists in one of eight districts of Clalit, Israel's largest healthcare provider were surveyed. The survey's questions recall episodes of medication uncertainty, confusion, misidentification, and medication mistakes associated with switching from one therapeutic equivalent to another. A total of 66 physicians and 63 pharmacists responded to the surveys (61 percent and 45 percent, respectively).

The results recall uncertainty, confusion, misidentification, and mainly cases of medication mistakes in which patients consumed both therapeutic equivalents simultaneously as was reported by 81 percent of physicians and 70 percent of pharmacists.

There are two limitations in this work, the first is the study type, which is recall survey; the second is the response rate which is not unusual among health care professionals. However, the high face‐validity and the consistency of the findings in both physicians and pharmacists surveyed indicates high validity of the study conclusions.

A practical implication is unique medication error of consuming both therapeutic equivalents simultaneously. The authors wish to raise awareness of the potential of such error, which may be difficult to disclose as each of the therapeutic equivalents is apparently the intended medication but consuming them simultaneously results practically in doubling the intended dose. Given the forecast for generic market growth, awareness is not enough and worldwide regulatory cooperation should be made otherwise these types of medication errors will inevitably emerge.

The study is original as a literature search revealed no studies evaluating potential medication mistakes attributed to a switch between therapeutic equivalents.

Medication errors are a significant cause of injury in Norwegian hospitals. The purpose of this study is to explore how Lean Six Sigma (LSS) has been used in the Norwegian public health-care context to reduce medication errors.

A mixed method approach was used to gather data from participants working in the four regions served by the Norway health authorities. A survey questionnaire was distributed to 38 health-care practitioners and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 health-care practitioners.

The study finds that the implementation of LSS in the Norwegian public health-care context is still in its infancy. This is amidst several challenges faced by Norwegian hospitals such as the lack of top-management support, lack of LSS training and coaching and a lack of awareness around the benefits of LSS in health care.

Because of the large geographical area, it was difficult to reach participants from all health regions in Norway. However, the study managed to assess the current status of LSS implementation through the participants’ perspectives. This is a fruitful area for future research whereby an action research methodology could be used.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study into the use of LSS methodology in reducing medication errors. In addition, this study is valuable for health-care practitioners and professionals as a guideline to achieve the optimal benefit of LSS implementation to reduce medication errors.

This study aims to provide healthcare managers with a meaningful synthesis of state of the art knowledge on error proofing strategies. The purpose is to provide a foundation for understanding medical error prevention, to support the strategic deployment of error proofing strategies, and facilitate the development and implementation of new error proofing strategies.

A diverse panel of 40 healthcare professionals evaluated the 150 error proofing strategies presented in the AHRQ research monograph using classification systems developed by earlier researchers. Error proofing strategies were ranked based on effectiveness, cost, and ease of implementation as well as based on their aim/purpose, i.e. elimination, replacement, facilitation, detection, or mitigation of errors.

The findings of this study include prioritized lists of error proofing strategies from the AHRQ manual based on the preferred characteristics (i.e. effectiveness, cost, ease of implementation) and underlying principles (i.e. elimination, replacement, facilitation, detections mitigation of errors) associated with each strategy.

The results of this study should be considered in light of certain limitations. The sample size of 40 panelists from hospitals, medical practices, and other healthcare related companies in the Gulf Coast region of the USA prevents a stronger generalization of the findings to other groups or settings. Future studies that replicate this approach, but employ larger samples, are appropriate. Through the use of public forums and expanded sampling, it may be possible to further validate research findings in this paper and to expand and build on the results obtained in this study.

Using the error‐proofing strategies identified provides a starting point for researchers seeking to better understand the impact of error proofing on healthcare services, the quality of those services and the potential financial ramifications. Further, the results presented enhance the strategic deployment of error proofing strategies by bringing to light some of the important factors that healthcare managers should consider when implementing error proofing solutions. Most notably, healthcare managers are encouraged to implement effective solutions, rather than those that are merely inexpensive and/or easy to implement, which is more often the case.

This study provides a much‐needed forum for sharing error‐proofing strategies, their effectiveness, and their implementation.

This study investigated the application in the field of healthcare of a recently developed model of information seeking and communication. The purpose of this paper is to test the model’s validity and to identify insights that it may provide.

To investigate the model’s application to information users, the findings from published literature on physicians’ information behaviour were studied. To investigate its application to information providers, interviews were carried out with staff working for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and with employees of pharmaceutical companies. The findings were examined using deductive content analysis.

The findings endorse the validity of the model, with minor modifications. The model provides practical insights into the behaviour of both users and providers of information and the factors that influence them. It can be used to identify ways in which information behaviour may be positively modified in both finding and communicating healthcare information.

This research demonstrates the practical value of a new model of information behaviour which was developed using insights from earlier models. In doing so it answers criticisms that research in library and information science often fails to build on previous research and that it has little practical usefulness.

This review integrates and builds linkages among existing theoretical and empirical literature from across disciplines to further broaden our understanding of the relationship between inequality, imprisonment, and health for black men. The review examines the health impact of prisons through an ecological theoretical perspective to understand how factors at multiple levels of the social ecology interact with prisons to potentially contribute to deleterious health effects and the exacerbation of race/ethnic health disparities.

This review finds that there are documented health disparities between inmates and non-inmates, but the casual mechanisms explaining this relationship are not well-understood. Prisons may interact with other societal systems – such as the family (microsystem), education, and healthcare systems (meso/exosystems), and systems of racial oppression (macrosystem) – to influence individual and population health.

The review also finds that research needs to move the discussion of the race effects in health and crime/justice disparities beyond the mere documentation of such differences toward a better understanding of their causes and effects at the level of individuals, communities, and other social ecologies.

This study aimed to analyze and define the concept of readiness for hospital discharge (RHD) in patients with myocardial infarction (MI).

Walker and Avant's approach was used for concept analysis. Electronic text searches were performed using valid databases with “readiness for hospital discharge” and “MI” keywords. The research included quantitative and qualitative studies related to RHD published between 1997 and 2021 in English and Persian. Out of 103 obtained articles, 29 met the inclusion criteria.

In the analysis, the authors identified stable physical state, desirable individual and social conditions, psychological stability, adequate support, adequate information and knowledge, and multidisciplinary care as the attributes of the determinants of RHD. Antecedents were divided into two categories, including preadmission conditions (economic and social, etc.) and postadmission conditions (disease severity and patient health needs, etc). The consequences were also identified as both positive (e.g. self-care) and side effects (e.g. reduced readmission).

The results showed that the concept of RHD in MI patients is a complex and multidimensional condition that applies to all patients on discharge. It is critical for the care team to pay attention to its attributes and scopes in the process of preparing the patient for discharge. It is also suggested that the concept be used as a nursing diagnosis on the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) list. The Association provides nurses with an up-to-date list of nursing diagnoses.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the utilization, attitudes, and concerns of health care consumers and providers about biometrics.

Data were analyzed from a survey of 324 adult subjects, including 167 “health care consumers” and 157 “healthcare providers.”

Health care providers were found more accepting of biometric technologies than consumers, a finding that seems to follow from more familiarity and experience with those technologies. Feelings about the potential uses and limitations of biometrics were found to be more differentiated among providers than consumers. Yet, concerns about privacy and the need for information limits were identifiable as important feelings among providers and consumers alike. Finally, demographic characteristics only weakly to modestly distinguished concerns about privacy and confidentiality among health care consumers and providers.

The findings reported here suggest the need for additional research into the types of biometrics adopted in diverse health care settings and into the nature of innovators or early adopters.

If biometrics is to gain acceptance, there seems to be a need for different promotion strategies for providers and consumers. Also, concerns for personal privacy will need to be considered.

This paper fills an important gap in understanding the uses, feelings, and concerns about biometrics among health care consumers and providers.

This paper aims to offer a profile of domestic abuse of older women and its impact on their health and well-being; explore some of the conceptual tensions that exist in this field; and discuss current policy and practice responses to this group of victim-survivors.

It is a review paper drawing on material from a range of sources; it has policy, practice and research implications.

Although there is growing recognition that older women are victims of domestic abuse, it tends to be regarded as a “younger women’s issue” and to be subsumed under the umbrella of elder abuse. This not only removes the gendered element, but it also uncouples it from the lifecourse where, for many, its roots lie. It also tends to foreground “old age” as the primary dimension of risk. There is a tension between the justice-oriented approach of the domestic abuse system and the welfarist approach that imbues the safeguarding system. There is a need for integration between the two systems. Also, for the health and care system to be more alert to the needs of older women at risk, we need to achieve a more effective balance between protection and justice, accord a greater level of agency to older victim-survivors and ensure they have access to domestic abuse law, policy and appropriate support services.

More research is needed with older victim-survivors: listening to their lived experiences, coping strategies and pathways out of abuse. The issue also needs to be more visible.

Developing appropriate domestic abuse services for older women is critical. Practice lessons can be learnt too: especially greater integration of the safeguarding system with the domestic abuse system. Training is needed too for frontline health and social care staff about the distinctive nature of domestic abuse of older women.

Domestic abuse of older women needs to be spoken about and made more visible in society and inside services, including older people’s third sector services.

This paper adopts a critical lens and makes a number of new arguments.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that categorises the features and characteristics of the built environment that impact on health outcomes.

An extensive literature review was carried out. A total of 1,163 abstracts were assessed, leading to 92 papers being reviewed.

There is a considerable amount of evidence linking healthcare environments to patients' health outcomes, despite the lack of clarity in relation to cause‐effect relationships.

The paper proposes a theoretical framework linking different built environment characteristics to health outcomes. This framework provides a structure to group causal effects according to their relation with design features, materials and ambient properties, art and aesthetic aspects and use of the built environment.