Clinical Work And General Management Of A Standard Minimal Resource Facility

Access to approved scientific medical literature is vital in the context of providing standard, evidence-based health care. Despite the abundance of medical information, ensuring that it is available to health care professionals in the field remains a challenge. Remote areas in economically disadvantaged sub-Saharan Africa often lack internet facilities or reference libraries. At the same time, the long-term storage of books and other documents is a problem due to climatic factors such as humidity and heat, the presence of pests like insects and rodents, as well as environmental hazards and the lack of trained staff to adequately manage, maintain and distribute literary material. Against this background and based on practical experience, this book compiles a series of common disease management protocols adapted for minimal-resource facilities, formulas for national healthcare schemes (vaccination, antenatal, child care) and other useful documents that can facilitate effective hospital management in low-resource countries. Primarily intended for healthcare workers in The Gambia and other nations with a similar socio-economical background, the book is also a valuable resource for international students and healthcare workers from regions like Europe and the Americas intending to do internships in economically underprivileged geographic areas.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

Core Topics in General & Emergency Surgery provides a short, up-to-date and practical reference guide for surgical trainees and established consultants needing a refresher. The seventh edition has been edited and fully revised by respected experts in their fields, and provides a full list of current references and relevant resources. It covers a range of topics relevant to all areas of surgical practice – beyond surgical knowledge – that are essential for enhanced patient outcomes. These include quality improvement in emergency surgery, evaluation of new technology, evaluation of surgical literature, and human factors. This volume is part of the Companion to Specialist Surgical Practice series, the pre-eminent reference for trainees in general surgery and those preparing for the FRCS examinations. Each volume summarises key issues within each surgical sub-specialty and provides evidence-based recommendations to support practice. Covers relevant topics not found in other surgical textbooks – essential to improve surgical outcomes Concise and easy to follow – ideal for exam revision or as a refresher aid Fully updated with latest evidence on recent developments, management issues and operative procedures International authorship offers a world view Evidence-based recommendations to support practice Key references to support content, plus a comprehensive list of references in the accompanying eBook Links to recommended online videos for further learning New chapters on surgical technology, quality improvement in emergency surgery All chapters revised and updated