title: Nurse-initiated health promotion prompting system in an internal medicine residents' clinic.
abstract: Although cure of many diseases depends on early detection, screening schemes have been difficult to implement in busy clinic environments. We describe the testing of a nurse-initiated prompting system for six health promotion and disease prevention procedures in an internal medicine residents' clinic at a university-affiliated community program. Maneuvers investigated were breast examination, pelvic examination and Pap smear, rectal examination in men, mammogram, stool guaiac test, and blood glucose determination. A nurse reviewed the charts and used a list in the front of each chart to prompt residents in the experimental group. Residents in the control group were not prompted. A significant improvement (P less than .05) in performance was seen in the prompted group. Performance of rectal examination and mammograms improved most, increasing from 41% to 93% and 18% to 64%, respectively. There were no significant changes in the control group. This simple nurse-initiated prompting system improved the performance of health promotion and disease prevention maneuvers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, New Hanover Memorial Hospital, Wilmington, NC 28402.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ranney
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000193:education* / Q000379:methods; D006764:Hospitals, Community; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses