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Health Care Providers’ Language Assistance Responsibilities: Major Federal and California Requirements
10-01-03
A number of federal and state laws address the need to provide health care in a language that the patient understands. This two-page overview of major California and Federal lists requirements for health care providers to provide language assistance to patients who require these services. The...
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The Growing Challenge of Providing Oral Health Care Services for all Americans
09-01-02
By many measures, the practice of dentistry has improved for the dentist over the past decade. Hours of work are down, and compensation is increasing. However, there is a growing disconnect between the dominant pattern of practice of the profession and the oral health needs of the nation. To...
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Minimum Nurse-to-Patient Ratios in Acute Care Hospitals in California
09-01-02
Many registered nurses believe that nurse staffing in acute care hospitals is inadequate. In 1999 California became the first state to mandate minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals. State officials announced draft ratios in January 2002 and expect to implement the legislation by July 2003....
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California’s Open Door Providers: Ten Case Studies of the Health Care Workforce
07-01-02
Critical health care issues related to the available supply of professional workers have emerged across the nation as hospitals and clinics struggle to provide needed services. Despite this increased awareness, little attention has been paid to these issues as they play out in health care “safety...
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What Should We Expect from California’s Minimum Nurse Staffing Legislation?
03-01-01
In 1999, California passed the first legislation in the United States to establish minimum staffing levels in hospitals for registered nurses (RNs) and licensed vocational nurses. The author provides estimates of the increase in RN expenditures required by this mandate, by hospital size and for...
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Minimum Nurse Staffing Ratios in California Acute Care Hospitals
12-01-00
As California implements its minimum staffing legislation, it becomes increasingly important that researchers continue to examine the relationship between RN staffing and quality of care. Research does not support the general assumption that more RN staffing is always better; policymakers and...
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Improving Oral Health Care Systems in California: A Report of the California Dental Access Project, 2000
12-01-00
California and the nation now face an oral disease situation that is of a crisis nature. The situation has developed over several decades and involves a complex set of problems, institutions, attitudes and financing arrangements. For millions across California, access to oral health care services...
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Public Policies to Promote Community-based and Interdisciplinary Health Professions Education
04-29-00
CONTEXT: Many rural and inner-city communities in the United States have persistent shortages of health professionals. In addition, health services are increasingly delivered in community-based settings by interdisciplinary teams. Yet, health professions students in the US continue to receive most...
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Evaluation of a Preclinical, Educational and Skills-Training Program to Improve Students' Use of Blood and Body Fluid Precautions: One-Year Follow-Up
11-01-99
BACKGROUND: Little is known about long-term improvements in medical students' knowledge, attitudes, and use of blood and body fluid precautions following preclinical training.
METHODS: We evaluated an educational and skills-training program emphasizing double gloving for high-risk surgical...
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Recreating Health Professional Practice for a New Century
12-01-98
This fourth and final major report of the Pew Health Professions Commission comes at the end of the most dynamic decade ever faced by the nation’s health professionals. As disruptive as this period has been, however, it may only have been the prelude. The health care system in the US will continue...
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Strengthening Consumer Protection: Priorities for Health Care Workforce Regulation
10-31-98
Health care workforce regulation plays a critical role in consumer protection. For most of this century, the state regulation of health care occupations and professions has established a minimum standard for safe practice and removed the egregiously incompetent. To become a more viable element of...
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Considering the Future of Health Care Workforce Regulation
12-01-97
In December 1995 the Taskforce on Health Care Workforce Regulation released their findings and recommendations in a report entitled Reforming Health Care Workforce Regulation: Policy Considerations for the 21st Century. The report put forth ten recommendations for reform and offered policy options...
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Charting a Course for the 21st Century: The Future of Midwifery
04-01-94
For several decades, researchers, policy analysts and consumer advocates have consistently found that the care provided by midwives differs from the medical model of care in ways that benefit women and their families in terms of quality, satisfaction and costs. In early 1998 a Taskforce on...