Methods: A link to the online survey was sent to healthcare professionals (HCPs) in Asia interested in AYA cancer care. Questions covered the demographics and training of HCPs, their understanding of AYA definition, availability and access to specialised AYA services, the support and advice offered during and after treatment, and factors of treatment non-compliance.
Results: We received 268 responses from 22 Asian countries. There was a striking variation in the definition of AYA (median lower age 15 years, median higher age 29 years). The majority of the respondents (78%) did not have access to specialised cancer services and 73% were not aware of any research initiatives for AYA. Over two-thirds (69%) had the option to refer their patients for psychological and/or nutritional support and most advised their patients on a healthy lifestyle. Even so, 46% did not ask about smokeless tobacco habits and only half referred smokers to a smoking cessation service. Furthermore, 29% did not promote human papillomavirus vaccination for girls and 17% did not promote hepatitis B virus vaccination for high-risk individuals. In terms of funding, 69% reported governmental insurance coverage, although 65% reported that patients self-paid, at least partially. Almost half (47%) reported treatment non-compliance or abandonment as an issue, attributed to financial and family problems (72%), loss of follow-up (74%) and seeking of alternative treatments (77%).
Conclusions: Lack of access to and suboptimal delivery of AYA-specialised cancer care services across Asia pose major challenges and require specific interventions.
PURPOSE: This review aimed to synthesize reliable evidence ondetermining factors among health science students' career choices to enhance policy advocacy for better health-care delivery.
METHOD: We sourced empirical studies from Scopus, PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar. From a total of 9,056 researcharticlesfrom 2010 to 2022, 27 studies with a total of 45,832 respondents met the inclusion criteria.
RESULTS: The majority of the studies were of medical students; internal medicine was the commonest choice (64.3%), with psychiatry and public health receiving lesser attention. In the four available studies of nursing students, midwifery was not chosen at all. There is a paucity of studies on this all-important concept for nursing students. The determining factors of choice of specialty were in four themes: personal, socioeconomic, professional, and educational/policy. Among the barriers to choosing particular specialties were low prestige among colleagues, stigma, long working hours, and poor public recognition.
CONCLUSION: The career choices of health science students do not reflect an adequate mix of health-care team members to meet the health-care needs of the world. Reforms of policy and educational training are needed.
METHODS: This was an observational study that employed qualitative methods to interview key informants covering relevant stakeholders. The study was guided by the systems theory. In all, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted involving 8 community health officers, 8 community volunteers, and 14 women receiving postnatal care in four (4) CHPS zones in the Yendi Municipality. The data were thematically analysed using Atlas.ti.v.7 software and manual coding system.
RESULTS: The participants reported poor clinical attendance including delays in seeking health care, low antenatal and postnatal care visits. The barriers of the CHPS utilization include lack of transportation, poor road network, cultural beliefs (e.g. taboos of certain foods), proof of women's faithfulness to their husbands and absence of health workers. Other challenges were poor communication networks during emergencies, and inaccessibility of ambulance service. In seeking health care, insured members of the national health insurance scheme (NHIS) still pay for services that are covered by the NHIS. We found that the CHPS compounds lack the capacity to sterilize some of their equipment, lack of incentives for Community Health Officers and Community Health Volunteers and inadequate infrastructures such as potable water and electricity. The study also observed poor coordination of interventions, inadequate equipment and poor community engagement as setbacks to the progress of the CHPS policy.
CONCLUSIONS: Clinical attendance, timing and number of antenatal and postnatal care visits, remain major concerns for the CHPS programme in the study setting. The CHPS barriers include transportation, poor road network, cost of referrals, cultural beliefs, inadequate equipment, lack of incentives and poor community engagement. There is an urgent need to address these challenges to improve the utilization of CHPS compounds and to contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals.
METHODS: We performed a comprehensive systematic search using PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, and Econlit from inception to July 2022. Articles were included if they described innovation or the characteristics of innovation of the technologies in healthcare. Characteristics or definitions of innovation directly or indirectly described as innovation were extracted from the included articles. Two independent reviewers then conceptualized the identified characteristics of innovation to generate innovation attributes in healthcare.
RESULTS: In total, 103 articles were included in this review. Eight attributes describing innovation, i.e. novelty, step change, substantial benefits, an improvement over existing technologies, convenience and/or adherence, added value, acceptable cost, and uncounted benefits, were conceptualized. Most of the identified innovation attributes were based on the researchers' perspective.
CONCLUSIONS: This study conceptualized innovation attributes in healthcare based on the characteristics of healthcare innovation as defined in the literature. Further research is warranted to obtain a complete understanding of the perspectives of researchers and other stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, healthcare payers, and the pharmaceutical industry, on recognizing innovation in healthcare.KEY POINTSThis is the first systematic review to conceptualize attributes of healthcare innovation.We conceptualized eight attributes describing innovation, i.e. novelty, step change, substantial benefits, an improvement over existing technologies, convenience and/or adherence, added value, acceptable cost, and uncounted benefits based on the similar concept.In existing literature, patients' and caregivers' perspectives were less frequently found to describe the innovation attributes.Future research is needed to identify, measure, and value various stakeholders, including patients' and caregivers' perspectives on healthcare innovation.