Patient Charter Research Articles

Strengthening health system governance using health facility service charters: a mixed methods assessment of community experiences and perceptions in a district in Kenya.

BackgroundEnhancing accountability in health systems is increasingly emphasised as crucial for improving the nature and quality of health service delivery worldwide and particularly in developing countries. Accountability mechanisms include, among others, health facilities committees, suggestion boxes, facility and patient charters. However, there is a dearth of information regarding the nature of and factors that influence the performance of accountability mechanisms, especially in developing countries. We examine community members’ experiences of one such accountability mechanism, the health facility charter in Kericho District, Kenya.MethodsA household survey was conducted in 2011 among 1,024 respondents (36 % male, 64 % female) aged 17 years and above stratified by health facility catchment area, situated in a division in Kericho District. In addition, sixteen focus group discussions were conducted with health facility users in the four health facility catchment areas. Quantitative data were analysed through frequency distributions and cross-tabulations. Qualitative data were transcribed and analysed using a thematic approach.ResultsThe majority (65 %) of household survey respondents had seen their local facility service charter, 84 % of whom had read the information on the charter. Of these, 83 % found the charter to be useful or very useful. According to the respondents, the charters provided useful information about the services offered and their costs, gave users a voice to curb potential overcharging and helped users plan their medical expenses before receiving the service. However, community members cited several challenges with using the charters: non-adherence to charter provisions by health workers; illegibility and language issues; lack of expenditure records; lack of time to read and understand them, often due to pressures around queuing; and socio-cultural limitations.ConclusionFindings from this study suggest that improving the compliance of health facilities in districts across Kenya with regard to the implementation of the facility service charter is critical for accountability and community satisfaction with service delivery. To improve the compliance of health facilities, attention needs to be focused on mechanisms that help enforce official guidelines, address capacity gaps, and enhance public awareness of the charters and their use.

Carta dei diritti della persona con malattia renale

Charter of rights of people with kidney disease Associations of social utility operating in the field of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in the Region of Lazio carried out a course for the training and retraining of people who perform or intend to play an active role within the Associations. With the scientific direction of an expert in advocacy, lectures and active training were integrated to provide knowledge and skills to interact constructively with health professionals and Institutions. At the end of the course, the participants jointly formulated and approved the “Charter of rights of people with kidney disease” which is presented in this article. The Charter refers explicitly to the European Charter of Patients' Rights and is proposed as a tool to improve the quality of life of people with CKD. We hope that the Charter will be adopted by other Associations and implemented by the Institutions.

SP0111 Pediatric Rheumatology in the Balkan Area

Pediatric rheumatic diseases (PRD) include numerous autoimmune, autoinflammatory and not inflammatory conditions in children that contribute substantially number of musculoskeletal diseases in adulthood (estimated to be present in each forth...

A catalyst for change: the European cancer Patient's Bill of Rights.

The European Cancer Concord is a unique patient-centered partnership that will act as a catalyst to achieve improved access to an optimal standard of cancer care and research for European citizens. In order to provide tangible benefits for European cancer patients, the partnership proposes the creation of a “European Cancer Patient's Bill of Rights,” a patient charter that will underpin equitable access to an optimal standard of care for Europe's citizens.

European Charter of Patients' Rights

European Charter of Patients' Rights

Do Public Reports of Provider Performance Make Their Data and Methods Available and Accessible?

Public reports of provider performance are widespread and the methods used to generate the provider ratings differ across the sponsoring entities. We examined 115 hospital and 27 physician public reports to determine whether report sponsors made the methods used to score providers available and accessible. While nearly all websites made transparent some of the methods used to assess provider performance, we found substantial variation in the extent to which they fully adhered to recommended methods elements identified in the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project's Patient Charter for performance reporting. Most public reports provided descriptions of the data sources, whether measures were endorsed, and the attribution approach. Least often made transparent were methods descriptions related to advanced provider review and reconsideration of results, reliability assessment, and case-mix adjustment. Future research should do more to identify the core elements that would lead consumer end users to have confidence in public reports.

The Italian charter for quality assurance in internal medicine

The Italian Charter for Quality Assurance in Internal Medicine is a response to the European Charter of Patients’ Rights presented in Brussels in 2002. It is the product of collaborative efforts by Cittadinanza Attiva (a nonprofit citizens’ rights group), the National Association of Hospital Nurses (ANIMO), and the Federation of Associations of Executive-Level Hospital Internists (FADOI). Its objectives are to enhance respect for patients’ rights and promote uniformity in the quality of care delivered in Italy’s health-care facilities, which is currently characterized by marked inter-regional and inter-hospital variability. This article describes the reasons and principles that have guided the Charter’s elaboration and the benefits of partnership between citizens and health-care providers.

Helping patients discuss CINV management: development of a Patient Charter.

In April 2012, an Expert Group of specialist cancer nurses working in a variety of settings (e.g. chemotherapy delivery, chemotherapy service design, research, nurse leadership and patient information/advocacy) participated in telephone/web-based meetings, with the aim of sharing current experience of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) management, and reaching a consensus on the development of a Patient Charter, designed to help patients understand CINV management, and setting out key questions they may wish to ask their healthcare professionals.

To encourage uptake of ACP in the community with the RCGP EOLC patient charter

Improving the uptake of Advance Care Planning in the community is highly recommended, but difficult in practice. Empowering people nearing the end-of-life and their families to express their needs and...

A patient charter of rights: how to avoid a toothless tiger and achieve system improvement

As part of the movement toward patient-centred care, several countries have adopted charters of rights for patients. Unlike the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, patient charters do not generally grant formal legal rights. Instead, they can act as a catalyst through which to resolve

A Patient Charter of Rights: How to Avoid a Toothless Tiger and Achieve System Improvement

A patient charter of rights should achieve greater clarity and awareness of the nature and extent of patients’ rights but also, if well designed, it should help drive improvements in the quality and timeliness of care, improve overall accountability of health care system actors, and reduce costly litigation.1 However, experience demonstrates that it is easy for a patient charter to be a paper tiger – a mechanism to merely talk about improving the patient experience and reforming the health care system. To be effective it is essential that patients have access to an independent Ombudsman or Commissioner who can expeditiously and cheaply resolve their complaints or concerns. Health care professionals concerned about a culture of complaint should be palliated by evidence that these alternative dispute resolution mechanisms significantly avert subsequent formal disciplinary complaints – thus both patients and health care professionals are winners. Moreover, an Ombudsman/Commissioner, armed with information-gathering powers, can also weigh in on systemic matters such as resource allocation decisions by the government, wait times, systemic safety issues, etc. The international evidence here is more mixed but suggestive that moral suasion from a sufficiently resourced, independent Ombudsman/Commissioner can positively drive system change.

Art, science and randomization

As I write, a television pundit describes the London riots as a ‘random’ act. Random is a word that people tend to use randomly, without a definite plan or purpose. Medicine, which some have called a science, would offer a reasonably prominent spot to random and its many derivatives, such as randomization, in a word cloud of conversations at vivas and journal clubs. But science doesn't come naturally to most clinicians and neither do the finer points of randomized controlled trials – and those befuddled clinicians range from medical students and junior doctors to professors and journal editors. Applying received wisdom and an instinctive feel for doing the right thing (art) remain more natural skills than applying hard logic (science). That doesn't mean we execute either approach well, and indeed a balance of the two is probably the essence of good medical practice. Clinicians, it seems, are increasingly unlikely to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine. According to Hutan Ashrafian and colleagues, clinicians accounted for 79% of medical scientists to win a Nobel Prize in the first 30 years of the awards; a figure that has dropped to 26% in the last 30 (JRSM 2011;104:387–9). Focus is on basic biological mechanisms of medical discovery instead of translation of scientific discoveries to wider clinical use. Is this even a problem? Medicine has changed. Clinicians were once taught at length about the scientific method and the philosophy of science. Today, technological advances and our greater understanding of the human body offer us much else to fill the heads of students and trainees. We have guidelines and algorithms, polices and patient charters plenty enough to learn. Science has become a specialist subject. For most clinicians, there is no value in being able to distinguish a frequentist from a Bayesian. No benefit in understanding the science in the healing arts. Clinical medicine is a messy business, and Ashrafian and colleagues argue for special dispensation. Constructing a flawless scientific study to evaluate translational innovation is such an immense challenge that those who interpret Alfred Nobel's wishes should be mindful of the difficulties. In the meantime, some might view medicine as more art than science but many medical researchers consider the application of the scientific method to the messy world of clinical medicine a fascinating and essential challenge. To these gurus, a riot is no more random than the purpose of randomization in a clinical trial is a purely statistical construct. In case I've lost you, Ian Chalmers will help you understand how the landmark 1948 MRC trial of streptomycin used allocation based on random numbers to minimize allocation bias, enable like to be compared with like, and fulfil a clinical need (JRSM 2011;104:383–6).

Changes in hospital orthodontic services

Dental NursingVol. 7, No. 8 CommentChanges in hospital orthodontic servicesPhil BanksPhil BanksSearch for more papers by this authorPhil BanksPublished Online:16 Aug 2013https://doi.org/10.12968/denn.2011.7.8.432AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Department of Health (1983) The Griffiths Report. Department of Health and Social Security, London Google ScholarDepartment of Health (1989a) Caring for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond. Department of Health, London Google ScholarDepartment of Health (1989b) Working for Patients. Department of Health, London Google ScholarDeparment of Health (1992) The Patient's Charter. Department of Health, London Google ScholarDepartment of Health (2000) The NHS Plan: a Plan for Investment, a Plan for Reform. Department of Health, London Google ScholarDepartment of Health (2005) Payment by Results: Preparing for 2005. Department of Health, London Google ScholarNHS and Community Care Act 1990 Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 1 August 2011Volume 7Issue 8ISSN (print): 1749-6799ISSN (online): 1759-7404 Metrics History Published online 16 August 2013 Published in print 1 August 2011 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

Doctors endorse development of patient charter

Doctors gave overwhelming support to the development of a national patient charter and other patient-friendly initiatives at the Canadian Medical Association’s 143rd annual general meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario. They also urged Canadian educators to revise medical school curricula to better

Patient charters all buzz and no bite, advocates say

Patient groups are skeptical that a national charter of patient rights would reap real-world changes in Canada’s health care system. The Canadian Medical Association’s recent proposal that a national patient charter be established in Canada follows on the heels of two decades of efforts to

International patient charters are often nonbinding or feature fuzzy metrics

<h3>Abstract</h3> SLC15A4 is an endolysosome-resident transporter that is intimately linked with autoinflammation and autoimmunity. Specifically, SLC15A4 is critical for Toll-like receptor (TLR) 7, 8, and 9 as well as the nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-containing protein (NOD) 2 signaling in several immune cell subsets. Notably, SLC15A4 is essential for the development of systemic lupus erythematosus in murine models and is associated with autoimmune conditions in humans. Despite its therapeutic potential, to our knowledge no pharmacological tools have been developed that target SLC15A4. Here, we use an integrated chemical proteomics approach to develop a suite of chemical tools, including first-in-class functional inhibitors, for SLC15A4. We demonstrate SLC15A4 inhibitors suppress endosomal TLR and NOD functions in a variety of human and mouse immune cells and provide early evidence of their ability to suppress inflammation <i>in vivo</i> and in clinical settings. Our findings establish SLC15A4 as a druggable target for the treatment of autoimmune/autoinflammatory conditions. <h3>One-Sentence Summary</h3> Discovery and characterization of SLC15A4 inhibitors with anti-inflammatory activity.

La Carta della Qualità in Medicina Interna

The Italian Charter for Quality Assurance in Internal Medicine is a response to the European Charter of Patients’ Rights presented in Brussels in 2002. It is the product of collaborative efforts by Cittadinanza Attiva (a nonprofit citizens’ rights group), the National Association of Hospital Nurses (ANIMO), and the Federation of Associations of Executive-Level Hospital Internists (FADOI). Its objectives are to enhance respect for patients’ rights and promote uniformity in the quality of care delivered in Italy's health-care facilities, which is currently characterized by marked inter-regional and inter-hospital variability. This article describes the reasons and principles that have guided the Charter's elaboration and the benefits of partnership between citizens and health-care providers.

Assessing the implementation of Ghana's Patient Charter

PurposeThis paper seeks to assess the implementation of Ghana's Patients' Charter by investigating the level of awareness and knowledge of the Charter's content, some socio‐demographic factors that may influence awareness and knowledge of the Charter and how providers have discharged their responsibilities under the Charter.Design/methodology/approachA survey research approach, sampling respondents from providers and patients in four facilities from the Greater Accra region, was used. Simple frequencies and Chi‐square test were used for analysing responses.FindingsStudy findings show that the majority of patients (53.4 per cent) are not aware of the existence of the Charter of those that know about it, a sizeable minority (33.7 per cent) are not knowledgeable about its contents. Relative to patients, providers exhibit better awareness (61.8 per cent) and content knowledge (61.8 per cent) of the Patients' Charter, but on the whole are not yet carrying out their responsibilities under it. In terms of socio‐demographic factors influencing awareness and knowledge of content, only education was found to be a positive correlate of awareness and knowledge. The relationship between providers and patients is generally cordial and could be used as a platform for improving awareness and knowledge of the charter, which could be crucial for improving service delivery.Research limitations/implicationsThis is an initial exploratory research with a limited sample, which was biased towards the educated. Findings are, however, instructive and essential for more extensive and representative research in this area.Originality/valueSince the Charter was launched in 2002, this study is the first of its kind and therefore provides important information for policy and further research.

Accountability key for patient charter

A patient-centred charter for quality must have adequate accountability measures if it is to result in improvements in Canada’s health care system. That appeared to be the general consensus of Canadian medical leaders attending a special session of the fourth annual CEO Forum (Metrics for

Can quality become tangible for health service users?

– This paper aims to contribute to solving the problem of communicating quality to service users. In particular, it seeks to focus on how to render quality tangible for the users within the health service, characterized by a high information asymmetry., – The method adopted is a case study, preceded by a rapid theoretical focus on the role of communication in a model for service quality (SERVQUAL). The case study refers to the Stroke Process at the Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital in Negrar (Verona, Italy). Stroke Process represents an excellent health service reality, unique in the Italian National Health System, for the care of brain stroke, one of the most serious diseases in developed countries., – The main finding is a managerial tool – the Patient's Charter – in which the health organization explicitly expresses its commitments, its standards and makes quality tangible for users., – The research limitations are linked to the single case taken into consideration; moreover, findings are confirmed by other studies about health organizations., – The practical implications consist of direct suggestions useful in health service management, specifically in communication activity. As a result of this research, Patient's Charter adoption by health organization is recommended., – The study has a normative value and its indications can be extended also to other innovative health services (e.g. multidisciplinary practices).