These two interventions were administered over a 6-month period in a controlled, prospective study design in a family practice residency program clinic. The main outcome measure was the vaccination rate in the targeted population. A total of 1,647 patient encounters involving 778 patients were documented during the study period. An intervention designed from a CQI process to impact the office patterns of primary care physicians can produce measurable changes in pneumococcal vaccination rates. Educated and resilient, this population has many ethnic origins, but all have shared a common experience under the Soviet system and the deterioration of health care since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Information is organized into concepts of causality, therapists, and forms of therapy.
FSU medicine incorporates many Western treatments but also uses natural and spa remedies. Mainstream FSU physicians make diagnoses and use therapies that are unknown in the West. In addition, the active traditions of folk medicine and magical curing persist. US health care practitioners need to go to extra lengths to understand the perspectives and experiences of these patients and must explain basic concepts of health care in this country that will be new.