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Review Program (review + program)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Evaluating Medical Effectiveness for the California Health Benefits Review Program

HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 3p2 2006
Harold S. Luft
An important aspect of the mandate assessments requested by the California legislature is a review of the scientific and medical literature on the medical effectiveness of the proposed health insurance benefit mandate. Although such a review bears many similarities to effectiveness reviews that might be undertaken for publication as research studies, several important differences arise from the requirements of the California legislation. Our reviews are intended to assist the legislators in deciding whether to support a specific mandate to modify health insurance benefits in a particular way. Thus, our assessments focus on how the scientific literature bears on the proposed mandate, which may involve a complicated chain of potential effects leading from altered coverage to ultimate impact on health. Evidence may be available for only some of the links in the chain. Furthermore, not all the evidence may be directly applicable to the diverse population of California or the subpopulation affected by the mandate. The mandate reviews, including the medical effectiveness analyses, may be used in a potentially contentious decision making setting. The legislative calendar requires that they need to be timely, yet they must be as valid, credible, and based on the best information available as possible. The focus on applicability also implies the need for informed, technical decisions concerning the relevance of the articles for the report, and these decisions need to be made as transparent as possible. These goals and constraints yield an approach that differs somewhat from an investigator-initiated review of the literature. [source]

Enhancing the Foster Care Review Process: The Case of Kentucky's Interested Party Review Program

JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL, Issue 1 2010
Valerie Bryan
ABSTRACT In order to promote timely permanency for children in out-of-home care, citizen foster care review programs employ volunteers to monitor progress for children in the child welfare system. In addition to case file reviews, Kentucky implemented an Interested Party Review system in which foster care review board members meet with family members and child welfare staff in order to glean more detailed and multi-faceted information to submit to the court. This article describes a mixed-methods program evaluation demonstrating the contribution of such a review process to judicial decision making and child outcome, as well as recommendations for program improvement. [source]

Stemming the tide: Cognitive aging theories and their implications for continuing education in the health professions

THE JOURNAL OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN THE HEALTH PROFESSIONS, Issue 3 2003
Dr. Kevin W. Eva PhD Assistant Professor
Abstract As demographic drift among health care providers mimics that of the larger population, it becomes increasingly clear that theory pertaining to the impact of aging on cognitive processing should inform the continuing education efforts designed for health care professionals. The purpose of this article is to offer a critical review of the major theories in this area and outline a sample of the implications that can be derived from these views. Research articles examining the relationship between age and physician performance were identified using MEDLINE, PsychLit, and ERIC. In addition, the psychology literature on age-related changes in cognitive processing was reviewed. Evidence from the medical education literature and psychological theory suggest the importance of increased environmental supports, decreased time demands, and peer review programs as barriers against the impact of aging. The implications of these findings include the potential to tailor continuing education (and physician remediation) efforts toward the age-related abilities/deficiencies of individual physicians. [source]