Onehealth, an evidence-based decision-making software, is based on the United Nations' epidemiological reference modules to predict the effect of health services. Onehealth is a large database. The software is using activitybased costing, simulating investment costs of health system and changes of mortality in different coverage levels. By the cost of inputs/avoid deaths, it could quantify the cost of health services effectiveness and provide an intuitive basis for the rational allocation of health resources. This study introduces the relevant concepts, model structures and applications of Onehealth. We took the study of child nutrition interventions in Sudan for example and to present Onehealth tool's operating. As a new auxiliary and evidence-based decision-making software with scientific and rigorous theoretical approach, Onehealth has practical significance on the national or regional macro decision-making.
It is one of the priorities of the new round of healthcare reform to develop regional healthcare alliances through vertically integrating resources. This paper reviews the framework and characteristics of Shanghai’s healthcare system, and then analyzes its strengths and weaknesses, underscoring Shanghai’s exploration in the vertical integration of medical resources as a response to the pressing issues in healthcare. The paper outlines the main tasks and groundwork of the Shanghai healthcare alliance initiative and gives an outlook on the expected outcomes. It ends with some thoughts on the problems and challenges confronting regional healthcare alliances in Shanghai.
The health status, health needs and demands as well as the concept of health itself have changes dramatically in the last one hundred years, the organizational and institutional evolutions of health system took place accordingly. To adapt the changes of health system, medical education has experienced three generations of major reform in the last century: the science-based curricula, problem-based instruction, system-based and competence-oriented education. At the same time the organization of medical education evolved from academic medicine to academic health center to academic health system. This article briefly describes the process of this evolution and presents author’s personal views on academic health system.
Objective To explore the impact of community healthcare workers’ (CHWs) knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on the influenza vaccination among elderly people. Methods By means of simple random sampling, 1 residential quarter of each communities, 2 communities of each districts, 5 districts of Chengdu city were randomly selected, and the elderly equal to or more than 60-year-old were on-site investigated. Meanwhile, the questionnaire survey was conducted among healthcare workers in the selected communities. Results There were 4 KAP factors played a positive role in influenza vaccination among elderly people: CHWs’ affirmation of the effectiveness of influenza vaccine, explicitly knowing the focus groups for influenza vaccination, recommendation of vaccination in flu season when the elderly visits, and participation in flu-related education activities. When the accuracy rate of each factor got improved by 1%, the influenza vaccination rate would improve by 2.747%, 1.299%, 0.864%, 0.602%, respectively. Conclusion The knowledge, attitude and practice of HCWs have impacts on the influenza vaccination rates of elderly people. They are significant to improve the influenza vaccination rates of the elderly.
Objective To systematically evaluate the effect of occupational protection education towards needle stick injuries among nursing students in China. Methods A computerized literature searching was carried out from October 2002 to October 2012 in following databases: PubMed, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP, so as to collect all controlled studies about the effects of preventing needle stick injuries between students who had occupational protection education and those who had not. Two reviewers independently screened the studies according to the inclusive and exclusive criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the quality. Then RevMan 5.0 software was used for meta-analysis. Results A total of 10 studies involving 2 197 nursing students were included. Ten studies indicated that protection education could reduce the incidence of needle stick injuries by 33%; 3 studies indicated that protection education could increase the awareness rate of protective knowledge by 52%; and 4 studies indicated that protection education could increase the correct treatment rate after injuries by 61%. Conclusion Occupational protection education before internship is effective to prevent needle stick injuries among nursing students. However, because of the limitation of this study, more high quality studies are needed to further confirm its effectiveness and to provide targeted advices for formulating preventive measures.
Objective To systematically review literature on the influencing factors related to adolescent sub-health problems. Methods We electronically searched the following four databases including CBM, VIP, CNKI and WanFang Data to collect Chinese literature on adolescent sub-health status and problems in China published before May 2012. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and cross checked records. Then qualitative analysis was applied. Results According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 41 cross-sectional studies were included. The results of qualitative analysis showed that the influencing factors of adolescent sub-health could be classified into four categories including social factors, family factors, school factors, and interpersonal relationships. The main ones were social support, employment pressure, family economic conditions, learning burden, unhealthy habits, etc. Conclusions There are many influencing factors of adolescent sub-health with interaction. Due to the limitation of the included studies, more prospective cohort studies are needed to provide high quality evidence.
Objective To investigate the current status and development of electronic health records (EHR) at home and abroad to grasp the development trends of EHR, so as to point out the direction of the development and relevant research on EHR. Methods Based on the Web of Science citation database and the principle of bibliometrics, we analyzed the retrieved literature in aspects of publication date, language, country/region, institution, author, etc. Results A total of 1 262 eligible studies were identified. The number of articles on EHR increased rapidly from only 2 in 1995 to 218 in 2012. In terms of country/region, the United States ranked the top in all countries (763 articles, accounting for 60.46%). In terms of institution, Harvard University ranked the top (135 articles, accounting for 10.70%). In terms of journal, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association ranked the top (106 articles, accounting for 8.40%). In terms of authors, David W. Bates ranked the top (45 articles, accounting for 3.57%). In terms of subject type, health care sciences services and medical informatics were mainly focused on. Conclusion The research on EHR has become a global hot spot and relevant bibliometrics will contribute to the timely and correctly grasp the whole picture of its development trends and main research direction.
Objective To investigate the current status of higher education of allied health professions (AHPs), professional human resource as well as the career development of allied health professionals, and to provide references for the planning of higher education of AHPs in China. Methods Literature was reviewed in relation to the current status of higher education of AHPs and professional human resource in China. A questionnaire survey was conducted to determine the career development conditions of allied health professionals. Results a) Currently, the higher education of AHPs in China was faced with such problems as a limited scale, a lower structural level, and an absent degree system. b) The number of allied health professionals was small with lower qualifications. Higher-end professionals were in shortage. C) The professionals saw multiples glass ceilings over career orientation, academic advancement, and professional entitlement. Conclusion Efforts should be made to expand the scale of higher education of AHPs, elevate degree structure, and to construct a professional education system with multiple layers and categories. The professional education should be combined with the career development for planning and collaboration to provide assurance for the career development of the professional in China.
Objective To investigate the use of oral anti-diabetic drugs and sugar blood control situation in advanced aged patient with diabetic mellitus in a community health centre in order to provide references for rational drug use. Methods A cross-sectional survey about oral anti-diabetic drugs was carried out in senile diabetic patients who visited the community health centre and established complete health documents voluntarily from February 2012 to February 2013. Results There were 176 cases of advanced aged patients with type 2 diabetic mellitus, of which, 107 cases were female and 69 cases were male, whose age ranged from 80 to 94. Among 176 cases, there were 107 (60.80%) patients with type 2 diabetic mellitus combined with hypertension, chronic heart diseases, and stoke; 155 had oral anti-diabetic drugs (88.06%). 67.19% of patients who took one oral anti-diabetic drug chose α-glycosidase inhibitors, followed by sulfonylurea. 53.73% of patients who received combination therapy chose glycosidase inhibitors and sulfonylurea. For the treatment of anti-diabetic drugs, 73.68% of patients met the criteria (fasting blood sugar: no more than 8.0 mmol/L), with control rates of 73.56% for α-glycosidase inhibitors and 72.58% for sulfonylurea. More than half of the patients could not be evaluated for their glycosylated hemoglobin levels were not tested. Conclusion Doctors working in community health centres should choose oral anti-diabetic drugs according to patients’ own conditions when treating advanced aged patients with diabetic mellitus in order to avoid adverse reaction such as hypoglycemia. Glycosidase inhibitors are the mostly used drug in the community health centre because it is safe with less adverse reaction when used in senile people and it could ideally control their blood sugara.
Objective To comprehensively summarize and analyze the status quo, assessing contents and problems of the assessment studies on appropriate health technology in China. Methods With the search terms and strategies predefined by repeated discussion and pre-retrieval, all literature on appropriate health technology assessment in China published from October 1949 to March 2012 were searched in the following databases: CBM, VIP, CNKI and WanFang Data. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, two reviewers independently screened literature, and extracted and cross-checked data. Disagreements were resolved by discussion or by involving a third researcher. The qualitative synthesis method was used to analyze the studies. Results Among total 174 included studies, 117 were cross-sectional. Targeted populations were patients and community residents who had received the service or treatment of appropriate health technology, as well as the grassroots medical staffs and workers from marketing organization who had used or carried out the appropriate health technologies. Appropriate health technologies mainly contained four fields of appropriate health technology: traditional Chinese medicine, western medicine, family planning services and community health services. Most types of diseases involved in those technologies were circulatory system diseases, and high blood pressure was highly concerned. The contents of appropriate health technology assessment mainly included 6 aspects: effectiveness, acceptability, economic characteristics, requirements, safety and technical specific property. The results of the included studies indicated that, most assessments focused on just one aspect, and were lack of comprehensive evaluation. The indexes used in each assessment covered a far too wide range, and was lack of unified index and standards. Conclusion Current studies show that the fields of appropriate health technology assessment distribute widely; the assessment content is simple and lack of comprehensive evaluation; the assessment index system has no unified standard; and the study design methods are different and lack of high quality study design. So it is necessary to conduct high quality assessment studies, establish scientific assessment index system, and systematically assess appropriate health technology, so as to provide more scientific basis for health decision makers.