55 research outputs found

    The evolution and integration of a patient-centric mapping tool (patient journey value mapping) in continuous quality improvement

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    The need to improve a healthcare system that too frequently fails to deliver benefits of care, even resulting in harm to patients, has been well established. The resulting era of quality improvement has aimed to improve the delivery of care by increasing quality while reducing cost. One approach to improving how healthcare is delivered is the application of Lean management strategies. Despite widespread investment in Lean approaches to improve healthcare delivery, evidence supports a deficiency of this approach to improve patient satisfaction with care. Identifiable operational tension between quality improvement efforts designed to streamline care processes and those targeting improvement of the patient care experience existed. We set out to address this deficiency by embedding the patient experience into improvement efforts through the introduction of a patient-centric value stream mapping approach

    Visualising Viruses

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    Viruses pose a challenge to our imaginations. They exert a highly visible influence on the world in which we live, but operate at scales we cannot directly perceive and without a clear separation between their own biology and that of their hosts. Communication about viruses is therefore typically grounded in mental images of the virus particles that transmit viral genomes from one host cell to the next. Virus particles are an important entry point in discussing viruses. The ability to form them is characteristic of all viruses. They can, as the infectious stage of the viral replication cycle, be used to explain many directly observable properties of transmission, infection and immunity. Finally, and importantly, virus particles are often strikingly beautiful and can stimulate further interest in viruses. The structures of some virus particles have been determined experimentally in great detail, but for many important viruses a detailed description of the virus particle is lacking. This can be because they are challenging to describe with a single experimental method, or simply because of a lack of data. In these cases, methods from medical illustration can be applied to produce detailed visualisations of virus particles which integrate information from multiple sources. Here, we demonstrate how this approach was used to visualise the highly variable virus particles of influenza A viruses and, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus particles of the then newly-characterised and poorly described SARS-CoV-2. We show how constructing integrative illustrations of virus particles can challenge our thinking about the biology of viruses as well as providing tools for science communication, and we provide a set of science communication resources to help in visualising two viruses whose effects are extremely apparent to all of us

    Ativismo ou altivez judicial: análise postural do Supremo Tribunal Federal

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    Analisa a postura do Supremo Tribunal Federal após a redemocratização brasileira de 1988. Empreende uma reflexão sobre a conduta da Corte Constitucional face aos problemas enfrentados nos últimos anos. A Constituição Federal de 1988 incorporou amplo rol de direitos e garantias fundamentais a serem guardados, promovidos e concretizados, inclusive via prestação jurisdicional. Dessarte, incumbiu ao STF o mister de dar significado e alcance as normas constitucionais. Contudo, é no cumprimento deste poder-dever, que a Suprema Corte pode vir a se posicionar de modo: ativista, autocontido ou altivo. Concluímos que o STF tem uma postura altiva e dentro das suas competências constitucionais, assim como, não há retrocesso democrático no Brasil, pelo contrário, há um avanço institucional, mesmo diante de crises de representatividade pontuais
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