Medical Centre

Although randomized control trials (RCTs) are the ‘gold standard’ to evaluate treatment effects in health care, they are frequently not practical, ethical or politically acceptable in the evaluation of many health system or public health interventions. In the absence of an RCT, evaluations often use quasi-experimental designs such as a pre-post study design with measurements before and after the intervention period, such as interupted time series (ITS). An ITS compares the intercept and slope of the regression line before the intervention with the intercept and slope after intervention. A one-time baseline effect of the intervention without influencing the secular trend can be detected as an intercept change. If the intervention changed the secular trend, there will also be a significant difference in the slope between the two periods. Use of ITS in biomedical research is described in more detail in an article published by Utz Pape and colleagues in the Journal of the Royal Society of...

The NHS Health Check programme aims to improve prevention, early diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in England. High and equitable uptake is essential for the programme to effectively reduce the CVD burden. In a study published in the journal Family Practice  and reported on by Pulse , Macide Artac and colleagues assessed the impact of a local financial incentive scheme on uptake and statin prescribing in the first 2 years of the programme. They carried out a cross-sectional study using data from electronic medical records of general practices in Hammersmith and Fulham, London on all patients aged 40–74 years. They assessed uptake of complete Health Check, exclusion of patients from the programme (exception reporting) and statin prescriptions in patients confirmed with high CVD risk. They reported that Health Check uptake was 32.7% in Year 1 and 20.0% in Year 2. Older patients had higher uptake of Health Check than younger (65- to 74-year-old patients: The ...

In a systematic review published in the journal PLoS One , Dr Lorraine Tudor Car and colleagues assessed the uptake of WHO recommended integrated perinatal prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV interventions in low- and middle-income countries. The proportion of women attending antenatal care who were counselled and who were tested was high; 96% (range 30–100%) and 81% (range 26–100%), respectively. However, the overall median proportion of HIV positive women provided with antiretroviral prophylaxis in antenatal care and attending labour ward was 55% (range 22–99%) and 60% (range 19–100%), respectively. The proportion of women with unknown HIV status, tested for HIV at labour ward was 70%. Overall, 79% (range 44–100%) of infants were tested for HIV and 11% (range 3–18%) of them were HIV positive. Around 22% of all HIV positive women attending antenatal care and 11% of all HIV positive women delivering at labour ward were not...

Several local attempts to introduce integrated care in the English National Health Service have been tried, with limited success. The Northwest London Integrated Care Pilot attempts to improve the quality of care of the elderly and people with diabetes by providing a novel integration process across primary, secondary and social care organisations. It involves predictive risk modelling, care planning, multidisciplinary management of complex cases and an information technology tool to support information sharing. This paper sets out the evaluation approach adopted to measure its effect. In an article published in the International Journal of Integrated Care , Felix Greaves and colleagues present a mixed methods evaluation methodology. It includes a quantitative approach measuring changes in service utilization, costs, clinical outcomes and quality of care using routine primary and secondary data sources. It also contains a qualitative component, involving observations, interviews and...