Search results for " Healthcare"

Variables that Modulate Home Care Effectiveness in Patients with Chronic Cardiovascular Disease

2019

Introduction: The growing population of patients with chronic cardiovascular disease has many complex biomedical and psychosocial needs and requires an integrated teamwork approach. There is a need to develop a model for assessing the effectiveness of home care in patients with chronic cardiovascular disease, which would take the needs of informal caregivers into account.The purpose of the study was to determine the variables affecting the level of effectiveness of home care, defined as the co-occurrence of high: quality of life (QoL), health behaviours and met needs.Subjects and method: The study involved 193 patients under the care of district nurses and 161 informal caregivers. The study…

Prescription drug use during pregnancy in France: a study from the national health insurance permanent sample.

2017

International audience; PurposeTo provide an up-to-date account of drug prescription during pregnancy in France from 2011 to 2014 using the permanent sample of the French national computerized healthcare database and with a focus on recommended supplementations, fetotoxic drugs and teratogenic drugs.MethodsAll pregnancies identified by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision codes list in the hospitalization database, lasting more than 9 weeks of amenorrhea and whose delivery occurred between 01/01/2011 and 12/31/2014, were included. Drugs delivered between the trimester before and until the end of the pregnancy were included. Drug exposure prevalence was calculated for …

Overcoming traditional Performance Management in Public Healthcare Institutions: The need for a DPM Approach

Donabedian (1988) was the scientific father of the notion that Performance Measurement (PM) of hospital outputs leads to improved quality of healthcare services, setting the foundations of how hospital quality is still today defined, considered and measured using three different kinds of measures: structure, process and outcome measures. Nonetheless, a growing part of literature during the last two decades has started doubting those favourable outcomes of PM on hospital quality (De Vos, et al., 2009; Nolan & Berwick, 2006; Werner et al., 2008a, 2008b; Werner & Bradlow, 2006; Wright & Hershman, 2014) while other research shows that ineffective PM systems are not just useless but …

SHAPES secure cloud platform for healthcare solutions and services

2020

The SHAPES project is an ambitious endeavour that gathers stakeholders from across Europe to create, deploy and pilot at large-scale a EU-standardised open platform incorporating and integrating a broad range of solutions, including technological, organisational, clinical, educational and societal, to enable the ageing population of Europe to remain healthy, active and productive, as well as to maintain a high quality of life and sense of wellbeing for the longest time possible. Not only each digital solution will be ethical, legal and appropriate for users, but also the results will align with the full and ethically responsible end-to-end exploitation of the new functionalities empowered b…

Fungi and Bacteria in Indoor Cultural Heritage Environments: Microbial-related Risks for Artworks and Human Health

2016

Cultural heritage constitutive materials can provide excellent substrates for microbial colonization, highly influenced by thermo-hygrometric parameters. In cultural heritage-related environments, a detrimental microbial load may be present both on manufacts surface and in the aerosol. In this study, bacterial and fungal colonisation has been investigated in three Sicilian confined environments (archive, cave and hypogea), each with peculiar structures and different thermo-hygrometric parameters. Particular attention has been paid to microorganisms able to induce artifacts biodeterioration and to release biological particles in the aerosol (spores, cellular debrides, toxins and allergens) p…

Perceptions of Healthcare Service End Users

2016

The main objective of this study was to compare users’ perception and evaluation of both public and private healthcare services, distinguishing between primary and specialty care, with a cross-cultural approach in two Mediterranean countries: Italy and Spain. Within an exploratory approach and following a descriptive aim, we have conducted a quantitative methodology: after a literature review about health marketing and health management, we have developed a questionnaire and collected end users’ perceptions in both countries. Results highlight different aspects shaping the multidimensional healthcare service, such as the waiting lists, their experienced sensations, word-of-mouth (WOM) rele…

‘Women-protective’ language as a tool of exclusion: Debates on oocyte donation in Latvia

2018

‘Women-protective’ language is broadly used as a frame in political discussions on women’s reproductive healthcare and labour rights. This article addresses the use of ‘women-protective’ language in online news articles in the Latvian media about the proposed prohibition of oocyte donation for nulliparous women. The main focus of the recent Latvian debate has not been on the technology itself, but rather on the female body and women’s rationality and decision-making capacity. The results of the analysis show that use of the ‘women-protective’ frame positions women as victims, increases control over the female body and restricts women’s rights to make autonomous decisions. The application of…

Dominant-negative FADD rescues the in vivo fitness of a cytomegalovirus lacking an anti-apoptotic viral gene

2008

ABSTRACT Genes that inhibit apoptosis have been described for many DNA viruses. Herpesviruses often contain even more than one gene to control cell death. Apoptosis inhibition by viral genes is postulated to contribute to viral fitness, although a formal proof is pending. To address this question, we studied the mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) protein M36, which binds to caspase-8 and blocks death receptor-induced apoptosis. The growth of MCMV recombinants lacking M36 (ΔM36) was attenuated in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, caspase inhibition by zVAD-fmk blocked apoptosis in ΔM36-infected macrophages and rescued the growth of the mutant. In vivo, ΔM36 infection foci in liver tissue contained sign…

Superior induction and maintenance of protective CD8 T cells in mice infected with mouse cytomegalovirus vector expressing RAE-1γ.

2013

Due to a unique pattern of CD8 T-cell response induced by cytomegaloviruses (CMVs), live attenuated CMVs are attractive candidates for vaccine vectors for a number of clinically relevant infections and tumors. NKG2D is one of the most important activating NK cell receptors that plays a role in costimulation of CD8 T cells. Here we demonstrate that the expression of CD8 T-cell epitope of Listeria monocytogenes by a recombinant mouse CMV (MCMV) expressing the NKG2D ligand retinoic acid early-inducible protein 1-gamma (RAE-1γ) dramatically enhanced the effectiveness and longevity of epitope-specific CD8 T-cell response and conferred protection against a subsequent challenge infection with List…

Sedentary behaviours and obesity in adults: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study

2013

Objective Sedentary behaviour may contribute to the development of obesity. We investigated the relations between different types of sedentary behaviour and adiposity markers in a well-characterised adult population after controlling for a wide range of potential confounders. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Multicenter Study. Participants Sedentary time (TV viewing, computer time, reading, music/radio listening and other relaxation) was assessed with a questionnaire for 1084 women and 909 men aged 30–45 years. Other study variables included occupational and leisure-time physical activity, sleep duration, socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol con…