When nurses’ satisfaction with balancing work and personal life declines, the consequences reach beyond the individual to threaten care quality, patient safety, and workforce retention. Achieving work-life integration is critical for nurses’ well-being and for the quality of patient care, yet longitudinal, multidimensional evidence on how work-family conflict (WFC), work-family enrichment (WFE), and work-life balance satisfaction (WLBS) influence one another over time remains limited. We recruited 1,677 clinical nurses from four Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Beijing, Xi’an, and Chengdu, China; 1,446 completed both waves of assessment across an approximately six-month interval (86.2
Real-world data on health care utilization are increasingly important for health research and policy. While countries with national public health care systems can rely on comprehensive administrative data, such data are mostly missing in countries with decentralized health care systems such as Switzerland. Health insurance claims data may serve as a valuable alternative data source. A comprehensive overview of claims data applications in Swiss health research is lacking. We conducted a scoping review mapping claims data use in Swiss health research over the last 25 years (2000–2024). We searched five databases (Medline, Scopus, CINAHL, Business Source Premier, and EconLit) and conducted a manual search of gray literature. Sources were screened independently by two researchers using CADIMA. Extraction was conducted via a standardized charting form developed in REDCap. Eligibility criteria included source language, publication type, health-related research, and Swiss claims data use. Of the 1922 individual records identified, 256 were included in the review. The use of Swiss claims data in health research increased by a factor of 22, from five publications (2000–2004) to 110 publications (2020–2024). Among those published in journals, 90.0
People from ethnic minority backgrounds often have worse outcomes and experiences than the general population when presenting to an Emergency Department (ED). Previous strategies to improve the experience of ED by people from ethnic backgrounds include strengthening self-management of health issues, improving communication between patients and/or carers (patients/carers) and ED staff, and building workforce capacity. However, details about interventions are scant, and intervention design typically does not involve patients/carers. The current study aimed to co-design, with patients/carers from ethnic minority backgrounds and ED staff, interventions to improve communications and health system literacy for ethnic minorities presenting to the ED. We conducted five workshops with a total of 25 patients/carers and five ED clinical staff using Experience-Based Co-Design method. Patients/carers were ethnic minority adults residing in a multi-cultural urban area in Australia. ED staff worked at the three participating hospitals serving the area. The first two workshops gathered 87 needs and 162 ideas from patients/carers for improving their experience in ED, which were refined and prioritised in the third and fourth workshops. Four interventions were developed in the fifth workshop: a waiting room digital display, a bilingual and visual pain scale, an informational video about ED processes, and an information kiosk. The identified needs and ideas addressed the ED physical environment and patient emotional wellbeing, in addition to communication and health systems literacy. Some ideas presented by ethnic minority participants were already in place or had been tried in the past, indicating the importance of a regular feedback loop between health services and the public to improve awareness and keep interventions current. Ideas inspired by experiences in other sectors were not easily translated into an ED context because of system constraints and the complexity of the environment. Involving ED staff from other regions and support services professionals, such as Information Technology (IT), in the co-design workshops could increase innovative thinking and enable the selection of ideas that are more easily integrated in current systems. Managing knowledge and power imbalance within co-design workshops can prove challenging.
Work–life integration is central to physician well-being, workforce retention, and sustainable healthcare delivery. Telemedicine may increase flexibility and autonomy but can also extend clinical work beyond scheduled hours and blur work–life boundaries. We conducted a scoping review to examine how telemedicine relates to physicians’ work–life integration and the organizational conditions associated with these reported experiences. This scoping review followed Joanna Briggs Institute methodology and the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews. PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched from inception to 16 June 2026, supplemented by citation searching. We included peer-reviewed empirical studies and implementation reports of physician-delivered or physician-involved telemedicine that reported physician work–life integration-related outcomes or clearly described physician-relevant work-design or organizational conditions. Two reviewers independently screened records and extracted data. Study characteristics were summarized descriptively, and findings were synthesized narratively. Twenty-nine studies published from 2015 to 2026 were included. The evidence base was heterogeneous across settings, specialties, telemedicine modalities, study designs, and outcome measures. Few studies assessed work–life integration as a standardized construct; most examined related domains, including workload, after-hours work, boundary management, flexibility, autonomy, burnout, well-being, job satisfaction, and retention intention. Reported benefits included greater flexibility, fewer location constraints, and greater control over time, particularly when remote care was formally scheduled and substituted for part of in-person work. Reported risks included hidden digital work, after-hours electronic health record use, asynchronous messaging burden, clinical uncertainty, responsibility transfer, and reduced team connection. Reported patterns varied across studies according to whether remote care was scheduled, recognized in workload accounting, supported by patient triage, escalation pathways, technology infrastructure, team support, compensation arrangements, and after-hours policies. Telemedicine should not be assumed to improve physicians’ work–life integration. Reported work–life experiences varied according to whether remote care was formally scheduled, recognized within workload, supported, and clearly bounded. Health service organizations should therefore consider evaluating telemedicine not only in terms of access and efficiency, but also in relation to physician well-being, job satisfaction, team functioning, and workforce sustainability. Open Science Framework, registration f4tv8.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a growing contributor to global morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Although international evidence highlights its increasing burden, the epidemiology and hospitalisation patterns of CKD in Ireland remain poorly defined, limiting opportunities for effective prevention and management. We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study of all hospital discharges in the Republic of Ireland from 2022 using the national Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) database. Infant admissions and cases in which dialysis or kidney transplantation were the principal diagnosis were excluded. Outcomes included hospitalisation rates, length of stay (LOS), associated costs, comorbidities, and inpatient mortality. Associations between demographic and clinical characteristics and outcomes were examined using generalised linear models and multivariate logistic regression. A total of 35,409 CKD-related hospitalisations involving 24,110 patients were recorded, accounting for 422,738 bed-days and €320.3 million in expenditure. The mean LOS was 11.9 days. Males accounted for most admissions (58.9
