Care for the Health Care Provider.

Pretravel care for the health care provider begins with an inventory, including the destination, length of stay, logistical arrangements, type of lodging, food and water supply, team members, personal medical needs, and the needs of the community to be treated. This inventory should be created and processed well in advance of the planned medical excursion. The key thing to remember in one's planning is to be a health care provider during one's global health care travel and not to become a patient oneself. This article will help demonstrate the medical requirements and recommendations for such planning.

Effect of a clinical practice improvement intervention on Chlamydial screening among adolescent girls.

CONTEXT: Chlamydia trachomatis infection is a serious public health concern that disproportionately affects adolescent girls. Although annual C trachomatis screening of sexually active adolescent girls is recommended by health professional organizations and is a Health Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) performance measure, this goal is not being met. OBJECTIVE: To test the effectiveness of a system-level, clinical practice improvement intervention designed to increase C trachomatis screening by using urine-based tests for sexually active adolescent girls identified during their routine checkups at a pediatric clinic. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A randomized cluster of 10 pediatric clinics in the Kaiser Permanente of Northern California health maintenance organization, where adolescent girls aged 14 to 18 years had a total of 7920 routine checkup visits from April 2000 through March 2002. INTERVENTION: Five clinics were randomly assigned to provide usual care and 5 to provide the intervention, which required that leadership be engaged by showing the gap between best practice and current practice; a team be assembled to champion the project; barriers be identified and solutions developed through monthly meetings; and progress be monitored with site-specific screening proportions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Chlamydia trachomatis screening rate for sexually active 14- to 18-year-old girls during routine checkups at each participating clinic. RESULTS: The population of adolescents was ethnically diverse with an average age of 15.4 years. Twenty-four percent of girls in the experimental clinics and 23% in the control clinics were sexually active. Of the 1017 patients eligible for screening in the intervention clinic, 478 (47%) were screened; of 1194 eligible for screening in the control clinic, 203 (17%) were screened. At baseline, the proportion screened was 0.05 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.00-0.17) in the intervention and 0.14 (95% CI, 0.01-0.26) in the control clinics. By months 16 to 18, screening rates were 0.65 (95% CI, 0.53-0.77) in the intervention and 0.21 (95% CI, 0.09-0.33) in the control clinics (time period by study group interaction, F(6,60) = 5.33; P<.001). The average infection rate for the experimental clinics was 5.8% (23 positive test results out of 393 total urine tests and a total of 3986 clinic visits) vs 7.6% in controls (12 positive test results out of 157 tests and 3934 clinic visits). CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of this clinical practice intervention in a large health maintenance organization system is feasible, and it significantly increased the C trachomatis screening rates for sexually active adolescent girls during routine checkups.