| Title |
What makes weekend allied health services effective and cost-effective (or not) in acute medical and surgical wards? Perceptions of medical, nursing, and allied health workers
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Health Services Research, May 2017
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12913-017-2279-z |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Lisa O’Brien, Deb Mitchell, Elizabeth H. Skinner, Romi Haas, Marcelle Ghaly, Fiona McDermott, Kerry May, Terry Haines |
| Abstract |
There is strong public support for acute hospital services to move to genuine 7-day models, including access to multidisciplinary team assessment. This study aimed to identify factors that might enable an effective and cost-effective weekend allied health services on acute hospital wards. This qualitative study included 22 focus groups within acute wards with a weekend allied health service and 11 telephone interviews with weekend service providers. Data were collected from 210 hospital team members, including 17 medical, 97 nursing, and 96 allied health professionals from two Australian tertiary public hospitals. All were recorded and imported into nVivo 10 for analysis. Thematic analysis methods were used to develop a coding framework from the data and to identify emerging themes. Key themes identified were separated into issues perceived as being enablers or barriers to the effective or cost-effective delivery of weekend allied health services. Perceived enablers of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness included prioritizing interventions that prevent decline, the right person delivering the right service, improved access to the patient's family, and ability to impact patient flow. Perceived barriers were employment of inexperienced weekend staff, insufficient investment to see tangible benefit, inefficiencies related to double-handling, unnecessary interventions and/or inappropriate referrals, and difficulty recruiting and retaining skilled staff. Suggestions for ensuring effective and cost effective weekend allied health care models include minimization of task duplication and targeting interventions so that the right patients receive the right interventions at the right time. Further research into the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of these services should factor in hidden costs, including those associated with managing the service. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 33 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 12 | 36% |
| Australia | 8 | 24% |
| United States | 1 | 3% |
| Canada | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 11 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 23 | 70% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 6 | 18% |
| Scientists | 3 | 9% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 77 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 77 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 14 | 18% |
| Student > Bachelor | 11 | 14% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 6 | 8% |
| Other | 6 | 8% |
| Researcher | 5 | 6% |
| Other | 10 | 13% |
| Unknown | 25 | 32% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing and Health Professions | 23 | 30% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 9 | 12% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 2 | 3% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 2 | 3% |
| Psychology | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 6 | 8% |
| Unknown | 33 | 43% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 23. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 July 2017.
All research outputs
#1,631,210
of 25,380,459 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#548
of 8,621 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#30,567
of 316,277 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#14
of 141 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,380,459 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,621 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 316,277 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 141 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.