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The Effect of Minimum Nurse Staffing Legislation on Uncompensated Care Provided by California Hospitals
06-01-11
This study assesses whether California’s minimum nurse staffing legislation affected the amount of uncompensated care provided by California hospitals. Using data from California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and InterStudy,...
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Nurse Staffing Effects on Patient Outcomes: Safety-Net and Non-Safety-Net Hospitals
04-01-11
BACKGROUND: Nurse staffing has been linked to hospital patient outcomes; however, previous results were inconsistent because of variations in measures of staffing and were only rarely specific to types of patient care units.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship between nurse staffing in general...
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A Study of California Nurses Placed on Probation
03-19-11
The California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) is responsible for protecting the health and safety of the public by regulating registered nurses (RNs) in the state. Nurses put on probation by the BRN have been disciplined for behavior that could jeopardize patient health or safety. Thus,...
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Hospital Information Technology Systems' Impact on Nurses and Nursing Care
12-11-10
OBJECTIVE: We conducted a review of the literature to determine the impact of health information technologies (HITs) on nurses and nursing care.
BACKGROUND: Nurses' effective use of HIT has the potential to produce a positive impact on nursing-sensitive patient outcomes, patient safety, and quality...
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Implementation of a Lifestyle Program in Primary Care by Nurse Practitioners
12-01-10
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to describe the implementation process and participant satisfaction with a lifestyle program provided by nurse practitioners (NPs) in primary care to adults at risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) compared to enhanced standard care.
DATA SOURCES: A mixed-method...
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A Review of California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, Health Workforce Pilot Projects Program 1973-2007
05-13-10
California’s Health Workforce Pilot Projects (HWPP) program was established in 1972 and is administered by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. The HWPP program offers an opportunity to safely demonstrate and evaluate new approaches to care delivery before changing laws and...
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Implications of the California Nurse Staffing Mandate for Other States
05-01-10
Objectives To determine whether nurse staffing in California hospitals, where state-mandated minimum nurse-to-patient ratios are in effect, differs from two states without legislation and whether those differences are associated with nurse and patient outcomes.
Data Sources Primary survey data from...
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Advancing Effective Communication, Culturally Competence, Patient and Family-Centered Care: National Commission to Create a Roadmap and Guidance for Hospitals
01-01-10
The Joint Commission developed Advancing Effective Communication, Cultural Competence, and Patient- and Family-Centered Care: A Roadmap for Hospitals to inspire hospitals to integrate concepts from the fields of communication, cultural competence, and patient- and family-centered care into their...
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Achieving Quality in Health Care Through Language Access Services: Lessons from a California Public Hospital
01-01-10
Provision of language services is central to the delivery of equitable, safe, high-quality health care for patients with limited English proficiency. However, there are many barriers to ensuring access to such services. We analyzed the experience of a model language service program at a public...
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Evaluating Success: Strategies and Challenges for Understanding IT Implementations in a Rural Hospital
10-01-09
In 2004, a small rural hospital in California received a grant for the implementation of an integrated IT system. As part of the grant, the hospital worked with a university team to evaluate the implementation. The evaluation plan emphasized quantitative analysis of medication errors, patient...
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IT Implementation in a Rural Hospital: A Cautionary Tale
09-01-09
An increasing number of hospitals are implementing electronic medical records and other information technology (IT), and national policy is focused on fostering expansion of these systems. In September 2004, a 100-bed acute care hospital in a rural community was awarded a grant to implement and...
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Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners in Specialty Care: Six Practices Make It Work
06-01-09
Physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly being incorporated into outpatient specialty practices to improve access to care and reduce wait times. PAs and NPs also bolster the quality and financial profitability of specialty practices by allowing physicians to focus...
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Restructuring California's Mental Health Workforce: Interviews with Key Stakeholders
03-01-09
The mental health workforce is challenged to provide needed mental health services to a growing and increasingly diverse population in California. By interviewing stakeholders and reviewing key literature this report seeks to assess the supply, demand, education, training, and diversity of...
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The Effects of Information Technology on Nurses and Patients in the VHA (Stanford, CA)
02-01-09
This presentation takes a closer look at the impact of the CPRS and BCMA implementation in the VA on nurses and care quality, as this qualitative and quantitative study finds that overall quality neither increased nor decreased and nurse staffing was not affected.
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Assessing the Impact of California’s Nurse Staffing Ratios on Hospitals and Patient Care
02-01-09
In 2004, California began requiring that acute-care hospitals maintain certain minimum ratios between nurses and patients, making it the first state in the nation to do so. However, little is known about what effects the staffing ratios have had, either on the hospitals themselves or the quality of...
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VA Technology and Staffing Outcomes: The Impact of Implementations of CPRS and BCMA (VA eHealth University, Tampa, FL)
07-01-08
This presentation delivers the results of a qualitative and quantitative study examining how organizational culture affects an IT implementation, and how staff views CPRS and BCMA. For example, groups who accepted that the implementation would take time and questions had more successful...
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Exploring Professional-Related Outcome Differences Between Phlebotomy Technicians, Medical Laboratory Technicians, and Medical Technologists
07-01-08
As part of a large scale practice analysis on Phlebotomy Technicians (PBTs), Medical Laboratory Technicians (MLTs), and Medical Technologists (MTs), additional data on four "home made measures" of professional-related outcomes, i.e., professional development, quality assurance monitoring, employer...
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Considering Language Access Services for California Hospitals
06-01-08
The move toward “cultural competence” that responds to the diversity of California’s population is reflected in efforts of California hospitals to provide linguistically appropriate care for their patients who have limited English proficiency. Legal mandates underscore this need. Health care...
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Improving Language Access in California Hospitals
09-01-07
The move toward “cultural competence” that responds to the diversity of California’s population is reflected in efforts of California hospitals to provide linguistically appropriate care for their patients who have limited English proficiency. Legal mandates underscore this need. Health care...
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Do Professional Interpreters Improve Clinical Care for Patients with Limited English Proficiency? A Systematic Review of the Literature
04-01-07
Objective To determine if professional medical interpreters have a positive impact on clinical care for limited English proficiency (LEP) patients.
Data Sources A systematic literature search, limited to the English language, in PubMed and PsycINFO for publications between 1966 and September 2005...
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The Need for More Research on Language Barriers in Health Care: A Proposed Research Agenda
03-19-06
Many U.S. residents who speak little English may face language barriers when seeking health care. This article describes what is currently known about language barriers in health care and outlines a research agenda based on mismatches between the current state of knowledge of language barriers and...
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The Cost and Cost-Effectiveness of Nursing Services in Health Care
11-11-05
This article examines the literature on cost-effectiveness in nursing, and considers the relationship between this literature and decision-making in health care systems. Researchers have attempted to examine costs and benefits of nurse staffing and nursing interventions for decades. There are...
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The Pharmacy Safety Net in California
08-01-05
Driven by the aging population and the efficacy of drug therapy in the management of chronic disease, the increased use of pharmaceutical products has become the fastest growing, most dynamic part of the health care system. This issue brief finds the pharmacy safety net facing a looming crisis. The...
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The Impact of Hospitalists on the Cost and Quality of Inpatient Care in the United States: A Research Synthesis
08-01-05
There is substantial disagreement regarding the impact of hospitalists on costs, quality, and satisfaction with inpatient care. The authors reviewed 21 evaluations of the use of hospitalists in U.S. hospitals. Most evaluations found that patients managed by hospitalists had lower total costs or...
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Improving Cultural Competence in Children's Healthcare
07-01-05
On any given day American doctors; offices, hospital emergency rooms, and health centers, are alive with the sounds not only of Spanish, but also of Haitian, Creole, Somali, Hmong, Mandarin, Russian, and other languages from across the globe. These languages communicate more than words. They can...
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Bilingual Proficiency among California’s Health Care Professionals
03-01-05
Californians speak a multitude of languages. In 2000, California ranked first in the U.S. in percent of the population speaking English less than “very well”. With 20% of the general population and 25% of school-age children of limited English proficiency, concerns are rising that many Californians...
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Public Health Workforce Study
01-07-05
The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis of the Bureau of Health Professions in the Health Research and Services Administration commissioned the New York Center for Health Workforce Studies at the SUNY School of Public Health to conduct a study of the public health workforce. The study...
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Public Policy and Nurse Staffing: What Approach Is Best?
01-01-05
Advocates have pressed for legislation mandating improvements in nurse staffing for at least a decade. Recent research publications have established a strong link between nurse staffing and the quality of patient care. These studies suggest that legislation that increases nurse staffing has the...
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California's Minimum Nurse-to-Patient Ratios: The First Few Months
12-01-04
The author examines the history and early implementation of specific minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in all units of acute-care hospitals in California. After reviewing preliminary forecasts of the effects of the ratios, the effects of the regulations in the first few months of their implementation...
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Legal and Regulatory Obligations to Provide Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Emergency Department Services
06-10-04
Language and cultural barriers to medical care are a large and growing problem in the United States. A number of federal and state laws, as well as professional and accreditation standards, require and encourage health care organizations to provide culturally and linguistically accessible health...