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Biomedical subjects

D Wieland

Publications and source records attributed to D Wieland.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Growth of the teaching nursing home. The Veterans Administration experience.

Nursing homes are becoming increasingly involved with medical education, and the Veterans Administration (VA) has been particularly active in this movement. We conducted a system-wide survey of VA nursing home facilities to determine the degree to which they participate in medical and other professional training and the features associated with such training. Of the 116 VA nursing homes in 1987, 113 (97.4%) returned completed questionnaires. Compared to "standard" VA facilities (n = 85), "teaching" nursing homes (n = 28)--those in which physicians received at least 20 hours of training per capita annually--were significantly larger, admitted and discharged significantly more patients per occupied bed, and placed a significantly larger proportion of discharged patients in noninstitutional community settings. Care costs in the teaching nursing homes were slightly but not significantly higher, despite significant increases in levels of professional staffing and amounts of training activities in all disciplines. During the survey year, teaching nursing homes provided training experiences for 440 students, residents, and fellows in internal and rehabilitation medicine, as well as for 2,700 other health professionals. The growth of teaching nursing homes in the VA system appears to be associated with positive changes in the pattern of health-care delivery, and it is increasing the number of health-care professionals trained in long-term care.

Aged↗
PubMed1989

Comprehensive geriatric assessment: toward understanding its efficacy.

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) offers health care professionals a technique for multidimensional diagnosis of frail elderly people to plan medical, psychosocial, and rehabilitative care. In the present paper, we provide a brief history of geriatric assessment, a description of the varied organization of geriatric assessment programs (GAPs), and a review of published effectiveness studies of programs worldwide performing comprehensive geriatric assessment. Program diversity has complicated drawing conclusions about the efficacy of CGA from a literature reporting generally positive, but not uniformly significant, results. We suggest that sample size limitations explain much of the variability in findings. Using the techniques of meta-analysis, we evaluate the effect of GAPs on mortality when all controlled trials are considered cumulatively. Meta-analysis of six-month mortality demonstrates a statistically significant 36% reduction of mortality for inpatient CGA programs (odds ratio = 0.64; 95% confidence interval = 0.50 to 0.83), and a 32% mortality reduction for all CGA programs (odds ratio = 0.68; 95% confidence interval = 0.57 to 0.80). Further use of meta-analytic techniques can be employed to clarify the effect of GAPs on other important outcomes (e.g., reduced hospital and nursing home use, improved functional status), and to identify program characteristics best promoting these benefits.

Aged↗
PubMed1988

Dynamics and clinical implications of the nursing home-hospital interface.

Nursing homes and hospitals are dynamically interrelated, and there is much that the clinician can do to optimize patient transitions between institutions. This article approaches this topic in three sections: epidemiology of movement between hospitals and nursing homes, impacts of policy changes and financial incentives on patient transfers, and clinical strategies to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations of nursing home patients.

Aged↗
PubMed1986

Organizing an academic nursing home. Impacts on institutionalized elderly.

In March 1984, a program for an academic nursing home was established at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center. The program was designed to improve care of nursing home patients, provide interdisciplinary training for medical house staff and allied health students, and stimulate research. Geriatric faculty physicians were appointed, medical house staff were assigned as primary physicians to groups of patients, and geriatric nurse practitioners were hired to provide day-to-day care. A two-phase evaluation of the impact of the academic nursing home on patient care was conducted. Beneficial developments associated with the program in concurrent comparison with the standard nursing home unit included a significant decrease in patient transfers to the acute-care hospital and significant improvements in functional status, patient satisfaction, and morale. A trend toward improved survival was nonsignificant. Longer-term follow-up revealed a significantly increased rate of discharge for patients completing long-term rehabilitation. Overall, the costs of nursing home care were only minimally increased by the program. Results suggest that programs like the academic nursing home can lead to improved process and outcomes of nursing home care.

Academic Medical Centers↗
PubMed1986

How health professionals react to their own commission of serious medication errors.

It is our intention to learn about how health professionals react to commission of a serious error and learn more about how these situations are handled, in a supervisory sense, by hospital officials. From the information collected, we hope to be able to profile the people who are most likely to make serious errors, learn more about the environment for such disasters, and finally, establish a list of recommendations for supervisory personnel to use in handling the employee making a serious error.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1984

The Sepulveda VA Geriatric Evaluation Unit: data on four-year outcomes and predictors of improved patient outcomes.

Data from its first four operating years indicate that the Sepulveda VA Geriatric Evaluation Unit is having consistent beneficial effects on patient care. These benefits include improved diagnostic accuracy, reduced use of drugs, improved functional status, and improved placement location. However, not all patients benefit equally, and differences between patient responses highlight the need to select those who will benefit most from relatively costly Geriatric Evaluation Unit services. Discriminant and regression analyses were performed on 98 consecutive patients to determine which patients admitted to the Geriatric Evaluation Unit would show greatest improvement in terms of placement, functional status, one-year survival, and living location, and which patients would be treated most efficiently in terms of length of stay. Patient characteristics on admission significantly associated with discharge home included a relatively high functional and cognitive status, the absence of an unstable medical problem, and not being expected to need nursing home placement by the referring physician. The latter two factors alone predicted actual placement location on the next 101 patients admitted to the Geriatric Evaluation Unit with high predictive accuracy (88.5 per cent). Factors predictive of patients whose functional status would improve on the Geriatric Evaluation Unit included absence of an unstable medical problem and being over 75 years old (predictive accuracy was 82.5 per cent). Two major factors associated with long patient stays on the Geriatric Evaluation Unit were low functional status scores and not living in own home or with family. These analyses indicate criteria that may be useful in selecting patients for inpatient geriatric evaluation and rehabilitation programs.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1978

[Scanning electromicroscopic studies of the surface of teeth. I. After manual treatment with tooth cleansers. II. Tooth cleaning with power-driven instruments].

Scanning electron microscopic examination of tooth surfaces after using manually operated instruments to remove calculus showed distinct lesions on the hard substances of the tooth. The extent of damage depends considerably on the area of the tooth treated (the border between the enamel and the cementum is particularly endangered), the amount of force used, and the length of time required for treatment. Examination of tooth surfaces following application of various types of power-driven scaling instruments revealed that lesions of the hard substances on the tooth are possible. The extent of the damage depends on several different factors, particularly the pressure applied and the area of the tooth treated. The border between the enamel and the cementum is particulary endangered.

Dental Cementum↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluating humanistic attributes of internal medicine residents.

OBJECTIVE: Methods of assessing humanism in internal medicine residents have not been completely designed or evaluated. This study used patient satisfaction as a measure of humanism, and assessed the validity of using faculty physicians to evaluate residents' humanistic behavior. Residents' ability to assess themselves was also evaluated. SETTING: A university-affiliated internal medicine training program. SUBJECTS: Forty-seven internal medicine residents were evaluated by patients, faculty, and themselves. DESIGN: Faculty physicians were given standard faculty evaluation and patient satisfaction forms, and were asked to evaluate residents. These evaluations were compared with the patients' responses on the same satisfaction forms. Residents performed self-assessment using identical forms; these responses were compared with those of the faculty and patients. RESULTS: There was no correlation between patients' responses and those of the faculty or residents. There was a significant inverse correlation between resident and faculty responses, especially for the female residents (r = 0.71). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest the need for further study of the evaluation process, including what factors influence individuals to respond as they do. It appears that the use of one rating group is not sufficient to achieve an accurate assessment of residents' humanistic skills. The present status of the process of evaluating humanism is discussed.

Adolescent↗