Educational Supervisor - The Clinical educator responsible for making sure a learner receives appropriate training and experience, and their progress through the full three year training programme
EFFECTIVENESS A measure of the success in achieving a clearly stated health objective in relation to a patient or a defined population.
EFFICACY The extent to which a specific intervention, procedure, regimen or service produces a beneficial result under ideal conditions. Ideally, the determination of efficacy is based on the results of a randomized controlled trial.
EFFICIENCY The effects or end-results achieved in relation to the effort expended in terms of money, resources and/or time. See COST-EFFECTIVENESS.
EHR see Electronic health record
ELECTRONIC BOOKING SYSTEM (or Services) (EBS) (Name has been changed to Choose and Book) The IT system available to GPs and the BMS, to enable selection and choice of the: Clinical service and specialty, Providers – from a menu of 4/5, Appointments, To process and send the GP referral, To hold referral guidelines, protocols, decision trees
ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD (EHR). Your patients paperless records.
ELPMEK’S COMMUNICATION EQUATION: Effective communication with a patient is proportional to your understanding and respect of that patient
ELPMEK’S TREATMENT FORMULA . A patient’s adherence to a recommended treatment is equal to the patient’s preference plus the treatment’s relevance multiplied by its perceived effectiveness divided by the sum of the effort required to adher and the adverse side effects
E-MAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS – set up with a specific topic focus, discussion on line with a group of individuals who share a common interest, open for others to join
EMERGENCY ADMISSION to hospital because of sudden illness or injury, as admission opposed to admission for treatment or surgery that has been planned in advance (elective)
EMERGENCY CALL SERVICE (Syn: deputizing service, out of hours roster) A service which provides urgent medical care out of hours for patients whose primary physician is off duty or absent from his practice. See LOCUM TENENS.
EMPIRICAL STANDARDS Those derived from statistical averages obtained from similar settings.
ENABLING FACTORS Circumstances affecting the nature of a medical problem and its meaning. for the patient, which enhances the presentation of the problem.
ENCOUNTER Any professional interchange between a patient and one or more members of a health care team. One or more problems or diagnoses may be identified at each encounter. Analyses of encounter data should distinguish encounters from problems. 1. Direct encounter: An encounter in which there is face-to-face meeting of patient and professional. This can be further divided into: 1.1 . Office encounter: (surgery encounter, consultation) A direct encounter in the health care provider's office or surgery. 1.2. Home encounter: (house call, home visit) A direct encounter occurring at the patient's residence (this includes home or a friend's home where a patient is visiting, hotel, room, etc.) 1.3. Hospital encounter: a direct encounter in the hospital setting. One encounter is counted for each patient visit. Hospital encounters an further subdivided. 1.4. Inpatient encounter: a direct encounter with a patient admitted to the hospital.1.5. Outpatient encounter: a direct encounter with a patient not admitted to the hospital, either in the emergency room or in the outpatient clinic.2. Indirect encounter: an encounter in which there is no physical or face-to-face meeting between the patient and the health care professional. These encounters may be subdivided by the mode of communication, e.g. telephone, letter or through a third party.
ENCOUNTER RATES Encounter rates may be tabulated using various numerators and denominators and it is important to define clearly the content of each. Thus, for numerators, direct encounters must be distinguished from indirect and first encounters from repeat encounters. For denominators, the methods used to define the practice population should be specified.
ENDEMIC PROBLEM The constant presence of a health problem within a given area or population group, i.e. the prevalence of a problem.
ENVIRONMENT All external conditions which can influence the health status of the individual or the population. It is subdivided into physical, social, cultural, natural, artificial, etc.
EPIDEMIC An outbreak of a disease that affects many people, the number of cases increasing rapidly over a certain period of time (day, week, month or year) and spreading from place to place. When it occurs world-wide, it is referred to as a PANDEMIC, e.g. AIDS.
EPISODE `An episode of care', as used in ICPC, is the period from the first presentation of a health problem or illness to a health care provider until the completion of the last encounter for that same health problem or illness. A new episode begins with the first encounter for the initial occurrence of an illness or recurrence of an illness following a disease-free interval. From the patient's point of view an episode extends from the onset of symptoms to their complete resolution. It can be subdivided according to its course over time: 1. Acute: (short-term) an episode of care with a duration of four weeks or less. 2. Subacute. an episode of care with a duration of between four weeks and six months. 3. Chronic: (long-term) an episode lasting six months or more. See also ENCOUNTER.
EPISODE OF CARE Includes all encounters for the management of a specific health problem.
EPISODIC CARE Health care confined to the management of presenting problems.
EPISTEMOLOGY: pertaining to the theory of knowledge
e-PORTFOLIO – An electronic record of specialist training, updated and accessible through the internet, it records details of achievement in the AKT and CSA and documents all stages of training, records evidence of WPBA, 'reviews with educational supervisors and the subsequent development as a General Practitioner.
ERROR A false or mistaken result obtained in a study, for example, due to bias. The error can be: 1. Random error is the portion of variation in a measurement that has no apparent connection to any other measurement or variable, generally regarded as due to chance. 2. Systematic error often has a recognizable source, e.g. a faulty measuring instrument or pattern, e.g. it is consistently wrong in a particular direction. See also BIAS.
ERROR, TYPE I (Syn: alpha error) The error of rejecting a true null hypothesis. See also STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
ERROR, TYPE II (Syn: beta error) The error of failing to reject a false null hypothesis.
ERRORS: the failure, for reasons which are preventable, of a planned action to be completed as intended (ie error execution), or the use of the wrong plan to achieve an aim ( ie error of planning)
ESTABLISHED Proven or placed beyond dispute.
ESTIMATE A statement referring to a measurement that is believed to be approximate rather than exact.
ETIOLOGY See AETIOLOGY.
EVALUATION OF A COURSE, perhaps its not whether people liked it, nor were the intended outcomes achieved, but what happened next. Follow through after a course rather than follow up.
EVALUATION: making judgements of value
EVERGREEN project. The 4+2 formula for business success. A company that consistently follows this formula has a better than 90% chance of sustaining superior business performance. The essential primary management practices- strategy, execution, culture and structure plus at least 2 of the secondary management practices- Talent, innovation, leadership and mergers and partnerships
EVIDENCE: Types and Strength of efficacy. 1=Strong Evidence from at least 1 systematic review of multiple well-designed randomised controlled trials. 2=Strong Evidence from at least 1 properly designed randomised controlled trial of appropriate size 3=Evidence from well designed trials without randomisation, single group pre-post, cohort, time series or matched case-controlled studies
EXAMINATION CLINICAL This may be unique to each country or cultural group. 1. Complete: the term `complete examination' refers to the examination which contains those elements of professional assessment, which, by consensus of a group of local doctors, reflects the `usual standard of care'. 2. Partial: the term `partial examination' refers to the examination of a specific organ, system or function or to a general examination, which is limited and incomplete.
EXCLUSIVE Quality requested for a definition in order to avoid confusion with another one.
EXECUTIVE WORK either prescribed or discretionary. A prescribed role is one in which less than half is determined by the occupant
EXHAUSTIVE Quality requested for a classification in order to be able to accept all the terms useful to reach its purpose.
EXPECTATION OF LIFE (Syn: life expectancy) The average number of years a given person is expected to live, given the mortality rate stays unchanged. Life expectancy is a hypothetical measure which gives information about the health status of a population at a given time.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING THEORIES AND CYCLE: emphasises role of active experience in shaping the concepts and generalisations that make understanding
EXPERIMENT A controlled study, where the investigator changes one or more conditions and records the effect.
EXPERIMENTAL EVENT RATE: EER
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY A study where all the conditions can be controlled by the investigator. In general practice it often refers to a study where certain environmental factors are changed, and the effect on the patients is measured.
EXPERT SYSTEMS A computer program that uses expert knowledge to attain high levels of performance in a problem area. For medicine this program should be symbolically encoded concepts derived from experts in the field of health care.
EXPLANATORY STUDY A study which tries to explain, rather than just describe, certain aspects of health behaviour, disease pattern or human interaction. The research is often referred to as QUALITATIVE as opposed to QUANTITATIVE. The research method uses the interview as a method of retrieving the necessary information.
EXTERNAL AUDIT Assessments of performance carried out by persons or authorities not personally involved in the activity under review or using criteria defined by authorities other than the practice whose standards are under examination
EXTRAPOLATE Predict a value of a variable outside the range of observed variables.