[A multicenter study on the quality of use of long-term medication card]. / Estudio multicéntrico de la calidad en la utilización de la tarjeta de medicación crónica.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate and improve the use of Long-term Medication Cards (LMC) at three Primary Care Centres and to obtain information about the impact of ongoing education on quality guarantee methodology. DESIGN: A before and after study. SETTING: The Caldes de Montbui, Rubi-1 and Concordia (Sabadell) Primary Care Centres. PARTICIPANTS: LMC samples from these three centres: 462 and 333 LMC for the first and second evaluations, respectively. INTERVENTIONS: The professionals involved were fed back the results of the evaluations carried out. Modifications in the system of control and organisation of the LMC were introduced. These included keeping the information contained on the LMC in the centres and changes in their cancellation and renewal norms. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The results showed intracenter increases on all except one of fifteen measurements, presenting the following extreme values in the two evaluations performed at the three centres: record on the LMC of the length of treatment (from 63 to 98%); non-inclusion of treatments with authorization of less than three months (58 to 100%); non-inclusion of authorization above a year (83 to 100%); recording of the guidelines (61 to 87%); non-inclusion of antibiotic treatments on the LMC (94 to 100%). CONCLUSIONS: As for training, experience showed that its is feasible and profitable to follow up ongoing training, both to evaluate the impact of this training and to use the application of the quality guarantee cycle in the introduction and setting-up of internal QEI activities.

[Evaluation of a tuberculosis prevention and control program (1987-1989)]. / Evaluación de un programa de prevención y control, de la tuberculosis (1987-1989).

Tuberculosis continues to be an important health problem. A tuberculosis prevention and control program was begun in 1989 in Ciutat Badia, introducing the inclusion of those who had been in close contact with infected subjects. In the two years of the study, a total of 1,548 tuberculin tests was performed, 518 of which were positive 33%). Prevalence of tubercular infection in the study population, was 13.95%. Ages ranged from 14 to 20 years. We detected 20 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis and were able to study 91% of those who had been in close contact with the subjects in question. Three of these were detected in the latter study, and two by contact with tubercular infection. We prescribed a total of 180 chemoprophylaxes (47 primary and 133 secondary) with compliance of 60% and 71% respectively. We believe that chemoprophylaxis plays an important role in the prevention and control of tuberculosis in primary care.