HadSoc Flashcards
Recognise quality and safety in healthcare as an important responsibility of
doctors
Ok
Why is Quality and Safety of Patients important?
There is evidence that patients are being harmed
Wide Variation
Direct Costs
Legal Costs
What defines Quality of Care?
Safe Effective Patient-Centred Timely Efficient Equitable
What does variations in national care mean?
Care is not Equal
Can suggest waste
Inequity
Not following guidance?
Theories as to why safety problems occur
Over-reliance of individuals
Human Factors
Reliability of Systems
Operational Defects
What is an adverse event?
Injury caused by medical management that prolongs hospitalisation, disability or both.
Can be preventable or unavoidable
What is a never event?
Examples..
Event that never should happen
Operating on the Wrong site
Foreign Objects
Wrong procedures
What is the Framework of Error?
The active failures and latent conditions which go together to create the “Swiss Cheese” model
What are some NHS quality improvement mechanisms?
Standard Setting Commisioning Incentives Disclosure Registration and Inspection Feedback/Data Gathering Audit
What is Clinical Governance?
A framework that means NHS organisations are accountable for improving continuously, safeguarding high standards and creating a successful environment
How do we avoid human factors?
Avoid reliance on memory Make things visible Simplify processes Standardise common processes Use checklists
Define QOF
Quality and Outcomes Framework
In Primary Care
Creates National Standards
GPs fulfill criteria and get payment for them
What is CQUIN?
Commissioning for Quality and Innovation
Get income for achieving goals in safety, effectiveness and patient experiences
What are National Tariffs?
Give set amount for each treatment
Penalty if mistakes
No money for never events
Increase efficiency
What is the Process for Quality Improvement?
Plan- Set the goal
Do
Study- did it work?
Act- plan the next cycle to improve
Criticism of Evidence Based Medicine
Difficult to maintain systematic reviews in some specialties
Can’t always do RCTs
Outcomes are very bio-medical
Requires trust in pharmaceutical companies
Challenging/Expensive to disseminate
May create a culture where we just follow guidelines
What are some difficulties to get evidence into practice?
Clinicians stuck in their ways
Resources may not be available
CCGs have different priorities
May create “rationing”
What is Quantitative?
Describe some Quantitative methods?
Collection of numerical data
Often use Questionnaires, can do RCTs, Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies
Usually use closed questions
Can be self-completed or administered
What is Qualitative?
Methods?
Collection of information, focuses of PoV and insights into behaviour
1) Interviews
2) Focus Groups
3) Documentary/Media Analysis
4) Ethnography and Observation
How can Social Class affect Health?
Higher Classes report better general health
Fewer Birth Problems
How can Health be affected by Ethnicity?
Culture can affect how you act/treat yourself
Genetic Factors
Access to Resources
How can Gender affect Health?
Female- lower mental health
Male- Violent death, higher mortality
Explanations for Inequalities:
Black Report, the BAMS explanation
Behavioural - ill health is due to peoples’ choices, knowledge and goals. Disadvantaged more likely to engage in risky behaviour, useful for health education but it victim blames (not always your choice)
Artifacts - Due to collection of data (mostly discredited as if anything it would underestimate problems)
Materialist Explanation- Due to unequal access to resources. Lack of choice in exposure to hazards
Social Selection - Causation is health –> Social position, illness leads to lowering hierarchy . Plausible but only minor contribution.
Explanations for Inequalities:
Psychosocial
They add to direct effects of living standards
Increased stressors in lower classes
Stress impacts health
Explanations for Inequalities:
Income Distribution
Relative income affects health
Larger the income gap in nation the worse the health.
Redistribute wealth to reduce inequality
Measuring InEQUITY
Utilisation Studies - Measure the receipt of services
What is inequity?
Inequalities that are unfair and avoidable
Why is it important to understand lay beliefs?
Can be socially linked
Have various sources
Not just watered down medical knowledge so may not make sense to us
Vary between people
Can impact adherence/compliance and general behaviour
What is a lay belief?
The way people with no specialised knowledge understand and makes sense of illness
What is lay referral?
When a patient speaks to a friend/family member for advice on whether to see a doctor or not
What is the symptom/illness iceberg?
Just a symptom like indigestion presenting, not seen as too bad but hiding an underlying condition e.g IBD
What is a health behaviour? What is illness behaviour?
Activity undertaken to maintain health and prevent illness.
How people interpret their symptoms, whether it is a risk and how they behave
What are the determinants of health and disease?
Physical Environment
Socioeconomic Environment
Genetic
Behaviour
What are the 3 levels of prevention?
Primary - prevent onset of disease (reduce exposure to risk factors)
Secondary - detect and treat disease at early stage e.g screening
Tertiary - minimising the effects of an established disease
What are the types of health promotion?
Public Health - reform the physical environment
Education- Target individual behaviours
Promotion- broader approach, include political/social aspects
What are 3 problems with health promotion?
Victim Blaming - focuses on individuals responsibility
Surveillance - monitoring the population “nanny state”
Consumption- lifestyle choices are tied with identity not necessarily a choice
Why is it difficult to analyse the effects of health promotion?
Due to their design (Multipart? Confounding Factors?)
Lag time
High cost of research
What influences illness behaviour?
Lay referral Information and Understanding Culture Visibility of the problem Tolerance threshold and the extent it affects them
What are some ways to evaluate the success of health promotion?
Impact Evaluation- Assess immediate effects
Outcome Evaluation- Long Term Consequences, can be affected by delay/decay of impact
Process Evaluation- Assess how it was implemented. Successful? Easy? Are People doing it, Why/Why Not?
What is a Chronic Illness?
Chronic Illness is a condition that has a long term impact, on lives, can have co-morbidities.
Symptoms can vary day-to-day but can only be controlled, not cured.
Why is it important to think about Chronic conditions?
Takes up a lot of the NHS budget
Half of GP appointments
70% Inpatients
Need to think of Psychosocial Aspects
What is the “work” of Chronic Illness?
1) Everyday Life Work - Coping Strategies; Normalisation
2) Illness Work - Managing Diagnosis, Symptoms and Slef Management
3) Emotional Work - Work to protect the well-being of OTHERS
4) Biographical Work - Loss of Self
5) Identity Work - Stigma, Self Perception
What is Stigma?
A negatively defined tract, characteristic or behaviour which shows a “deviant” status.
Can be felt or enacted, discreditable and discrediting
What is the difference between discreditable and discrediting stigma?
able : no visible signes but people’s reactions change when they find out e.g. HIV
-ing : physical signs/known
Some can be both: Epilepsy
Why are Chronic conditions disabling?
Symptoms (Medical Model) Social Oppression (Social Model)
What is the sociological approach to chronic illness?
Looks at how people manage their illness in everyday life and how it affects their social interaction and role performance
What is an Illness narrative?
Storytelling and Accounting practices that occur when ill
How do we classify disability?
WHO has the ICF (International Classification of Function, Disability and Health)
Integrates medical and social models of disability and recognises the importance of wider environment
Give some detail about ICF…
It looks at the Conditions,
Split into:
Impairment (of Bodily Function)
Limitation (to Activity)
Restriction (of Participation)
Environmental and Personal factors that can add to it
How do we measure Health?
Mortality
Morbidity
Patient-Reported Outcomes