Universal Screening For Gestational Diabetes Mellitus In Antenatal Mothers Improves Antenatal Management And Outcomes – Single Centre Experience

@#This study examined the impact of universal screening in diagnosing and managing gestational diabetes (GDM) amongst antenatal mother and associated neonatal outcomes. It is a single-centre, retrospective study on routinely collected data of antenatal women in Health Clinic Seremban over one year in 2018. All women diagnosed with GDM, who were not known sufferers of type 1 or type 2 diabetes were included in this study. Participants were stratified according to risk factors for GDM to compare the performance of a selective high-risk screening approach to that of universal screening for detecting GDM. Subjects were categorized as high-risk for GDM based on the guidelines recommended by the Malaysian Clinical Practice guidelines. It was found that through universal screening, 246 antenatal mothers were tested positive for GDM out of the 987 of these mothers without prior diabetes, giving a prevalence of 24.9%. If selective screening using traditional risk factors had been employed, 54 (22%) of the antenatal mothers diagnosed with GDM would have been missed. It was established that risk factors for GDM included advancing age, other ethnicities (patients that are not of Malay, Chinese nor Indian ethnicities), obesity, history of abortion or GDM and family history of diabetes mellitus. Neonatal outcomes of those with GDM as compared to those without were similar. This study highlights that universal screening improved GDM detection rates amongst antenatal mothers. The increased detection helped facilitate an earlier intervention which may have contributed to better antenatal management and outcomes for neonates and their mothers.

Morbidity Profiles at three Primary Care Clinics in Perlis, Malaysia

Electronic data from TPC system is proven a valuable source to perform a case-mix evaluation which otherwise will require a massive effort in data collection, if done manually. Through ACG case-mix system, patients’ morbidity profiles by individual clinic can be determined so that resources required can be further assess and justified. This study revealed there are variations in the morbidity profiles of the different public primary care clinics in Perlis.

Public Health Nursing in 1Care

Public health nursing is a specialized nursing combining both nursing and public health principles with the primary focus of improving the health of the whole community rather than just an individual. Its documented history started in the 1800s and has evolved from home visiting to the varied settings that public health nurses find themselves working in as members of public health teams in clinics, schools, workplaces and government health departments.Public health nursing has been a critical component of the country’s health care system, uplifting of the health status of Malaysians and playing a dominant role in the fight against communicable diseases, and is set to face the challenges of the 21st century with public health nurses practising to the full capacity of their training in a restructured Malaysian health system – 1Care for 1Malaysia. The health sector reform allows for optimisation of scarce health care resources to deliver expansion of quality services based on needs, appropriateness, equity &allocative efficiency. The proposed model will be better than the current system, preserving the strengths of the current system but able to respond to increasing population health needs and expectations. There will be increased autonomy for healthcare providers with incentives in place for greater performance. Some of the implications of reform include allowing public- private integration, a slimmer Ministry of Health with a stronger governance role, enhancing the gatekeeping role of the primary care providers and the autonomous management of the public healthcare providers. In this restructured health system, the roles of the public health nurses are no less important than in the current one. In fact, with the increasing emphasis placed on prevention and primary care as the hub of community care with nurses as part of the primary care team delivering continuous comprehensive person-centered care,public health nurses in the future will be able to meet the challenge of refocusing on the true mission of public health: to look at the health problems of a community as a whole and work with the community in alleviating those problems by applying the nursing process to improve health, not just as providers of personal care only.