Ministry of Health Library

Health Improvement and Innovation Digest

Issue 181 - 20 December 2018

Welcome to the fortnightly Health Improvement and Innovation Digest (formerly the HIIRC digest). The Digest has links to key evidence of interest, with access to new content arranged by topic.

You can forward this newsletter to others who may be interested in receiving it. They can register and subscribe here. You can also access other recent issues of the digest here.

If you have any queries, please email us at library@moh.govt.nz.

Season's greetings and thank you for reading the Health Improvement and Innovation Digest. This is our last issue for 2018, and the next issue will be published on 17 January 2019.

Have you heard about Grey Matter?

We'd like to introduce you to another newsletter that the Ministry of Health Library prepares.  The Grey Matter newsletter provides monthly access to a selection of recent NGO, Think Tank, and International Government reports related to health. Information is arranged by topic, allowing readers to quickly find their areas of interest.  If you'd like to subscribe to Grey Matter, email library@moh.govt.nz.

Article access

For articles that aren't open access, contact your DHB library, or organisational or local library for assistance in accessing the full text. If your organisation has a subscription, you may be able to use the icon under full text links in PubMed to access the full article.

Learning from adverse events report 2017–18
This is the annual adverse events report published by the Health Quality & Safety Commission. The report covers adverse events reported by New Zealand's 20 district health boards (DHBs) and other providers. Adverse events (previously referred to as serious and sentinel events) are events which have generally resulted in harm to patients. This report details adverse events in DHBs in the year 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.

National, technical and regional reports - Ngā Poutama Oranga Hinengaro: Quality in Context survey of mental health and addiction services
These publications, issued by the Health Quality & Safety Commission (HQSC), report on Ngā Poutama Oranga Hinengaro: Quality in context (Ngā Poutama), a survey of over 2500 people working in mental health and addiction services in New Zealand. The survey was conducted to inform the HQSC’s national MHA quality improvement programme.

Health workforce cultural competency interventions: a systematic scoping review
Addressing health workforce cultural competence is a common approach to improving health service quality for culturally and ethnically diverse groups. This scoping review, published in BMC Health Services Research, reports on the intervention strategies, outcomes, and measures of included studies with the purpose of informing the implementation and evaluation of future interventions to improve health workforce cultural competence.

Patient safety after implementation of a coproduced family centered communication programme: multicenter before and after intervention study
The objective of this study, published in BMJ, was to determine whether medical errors, family experience, and communication processes improved after implementation of an intervention to standardize the structure of healthcare provider-family communication on family centered rounds.

Patient and public involvement in medical performance processes: a systematic review
Patient and public involvement (PPI) continues to develop as a central policy agenda in health care. The patient voice is seen as relevant, informative and can drive service improvement. However, critical exploration of PPI's role within monitoring and informing medical performance processes remains limited. The objective of this review, published in Health Expectations, was to explore and evaluate the contribution of PPI in medical performance processes to understand its extent, purpose and process.

Technological innovations in infection control: A rapid review of the acceptance of behavior monitoring systems and their contribution to the improvement of hand hygiene
Hand hygiene monitoring and feedback are recommended by the WHO. This review, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, focuses on technological behaviour monitoring innovations in hand hygiene.

Ten tips for advancing a culture of improvement in primary care
Embracing practice-based quality improvement (QI) represents one way for clinicians to improve the care they provide to patients while also improving their own professional satisfaction. But engaging in care redesign is challenging for clinicians. In this article, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, the authors describe their experience over the last 7 years transforming the care delivered in their large primary care practice. They reflect on their journey and offer 10 tips to healthcare leaders seeking to advance a culture of improvement.

Adherence in the cancer care setting: a systematic review of patient navigation to traverse barriers
Patient navigation is an evidence-based intervention involving trained healthcare workers who assist patients in assessing and mitigating personal and environmental factors to promote healthy behaviors. The purpose of this research, published in the Journal of Cancer Education, was to systematically assess the efficacy of patient navigation and similar programs to improve diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting medically underserved populations.

Why the new 'living' Australian Stroke Guidelines matter to New Zealand
Published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, this article discusses the 2017 Australian Clinical Guidelines for Stroke Management, which provide the latest evidence-based guidance and have been adopted for New Zealand in an effort to improve outcomes for all New Zealanders.

Effectiveness of interventions involving nurses in secondary stroke prevention: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Among members of the health care team, nurses play a large role in actively engaging stroke survivors in secondary stroke prevention programs. This systematic review and meta-analysis, published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, examines the effectiveness of interventions in which nurses have a primary role on modification of risk factors among stroke survivors.

Preserving optimal cardiovascular health in children
The origins of cardiovascular disease are at the beginning of life, and national guidelines recommend evaluation for cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity and hypertension as part of general pediatric care. In this review, published in Pediatric Annals, a simple plan is proposed for clear and consistent monitoring and messaging throughout childhood, based on the American Heart Association's "cardiovascular health" construct.

Service provision in the wake of a new funding model for community pharmacy
Recently, New Zealand has taken a system wide approach providing the biggest reform to New Zealand community pharmacy for 70 years with the aim of providing more clinically orientated patient centred services through a new funding model. The aim of this study, published in BMC Health Services Research, was to understand the types of services offered in New Zealand community pharmacies since introduction of the new funding model, what the barriers are to providing these services.

The associations between cultural identity and mental health outcomes for indigenous Māori youth in New Zealand
The objective of this study, published in Frontiers in Public Health, was to explore the relationships between Māori cultural identity, ethnic discrimination and mental health outcomes for Māori youth in New Zealand.

Outcomes of a statewide learning collaborative to implement mental health services in pediatric primary care
Mental health concerns are common in pediatric primary care, but practitioners report low levels of comfort managing them. This study, published in Psychiatric Services, investigated the effectiveness of a primary care intervention, addressing organizational and individual factors, developed to improve the management of common mental health conditions.

Barriers and facilitators to the integration of mental health services into primary health care: a systematic review
The objective of this review, published in Systematic Reviews, was to synthesize evidence of barriers and facilitators to the integration of mental health services into primary health care from existing literature.

Strategies not accompanied by a mental health professional to address anxiety and depression in children and young people: a scoping review of range and a systematic review of effectiveness
This review, published in The Lancet: Psychiatry, reports on a scoping review followed by a systematic review to consider interventions designed to address or manage depression or anxiety in children and young people up to the age of 25 years without the need to involve mental health professionals.

Interventions to help people understand community immunity: a systematic review
Herd immunity, or community immunity, occurs when susceptible people in a population are indirectly protected from infection thanks to the pervasiveness of immunity within the population. In this study, published in Vaccine, the authors aimed to systematically review interventions designed to communicate what community immunity is and how community immunity works to members of the general public.

Impact of game-based health promotion programs on body mass index in overweight/obese children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Sedentary lifestyle is growing among children and adolescents that may contribute to problems such as overweight and obesity. Consequently, interventions to improve weight loss in this population are necessary. The aim of this current review, published in Childhood Obesity, was to evaluate the effectiveness of game-based interventions to reduce body mass index (BMI) among children who were overweight or obese.

Therapeutic Products Regulatory Scheme consultation
The Ministry of Health is seeking feedback on the draft of Therapeutic Products Bill. The Therapeutic Products Bill would replace the Medicines Act 1981 and establish a new regulatory scheme for therapeutic products. This includes medicines (including cell and tissue products) and medical devices. Natural Health Products (including rongoā Māori) will be excluded, as far as possible, as the Government is considering options for how these could be regulated as a separate process. Recognising the complexity of the Bill, and the impact of the holiday period, the consultation period will run for four months, ending 18 April 2019.

ʹAla Moʹui Progress Report – Pacific Health Care Utilisation
This report is focused on Pacific peoples’ health service utilisation. It shows areas where the health sector is performing well for Pacific peoples and where further improvement is needed. It includes indicators such as ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations, GP and nurse utilisation, heart and diabetes checks and access to mental health services. ʹAla Moʹui supports the Ministry of Health, DHBs and the wider health sector to identify and prioritise areas for national and local improvement in the provision of health services to Pacific peoples in New Zealand.

ʹAla Moʹui Progress Report – Pacific Child Health
This report shows areas where the health system is performing well for Pacific children and where further improvement is needed. It includes indicators such as newborn enrolment, B4 School Checks and immunisations. ʹAla Moʹui supports the Ministry of Health, DHBs and the wider health sector to identify and prioritise areas for national and local improvement in the provision of health services to Pacific peoples in New Zealand.

The information available on or through this newsletter does not represent Ministry of Health policy. It is intended to provide general information to the health sector and the public, and is not intended to address specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity.