Communication constitutes an essential aspect of teamwork. This is especially true for audit teams, where communication takes place not only within the work group but also with the audit recipients. For this reason, given the poor evidence in the literature, communication training was carried out on an audit team. Training was divided into 10 meetings of two hours each, with the meetings taking place over 2 months. Questionnaires were administered to identify the characteristics and styles of communication, to assess the sense of perceived self-efficacy in general and at work, and to evaluate the knowledge inherent in the communication. This battery was administered before and after the training to evaluate its effectiveness and its effects on self-efficacy, communication style, and knowledge. Furthermore, a communication audit was performed on the feedback provided by the team, to highlight satisfaction, strengths, and any critical issues that emerged during the feedback phase. The results obtained suggest that training has an effect not only on individual knowledge but also on personological aspects. Communication among colleagues and general self-efficacy appear to be improved by the process. Self-efficacy also specifically improves in the work environment, with subjects feeling more able to manage relationships and collaborations with colleagues and supervisors. Moreover, the audit team members were satisfied with the training received, perceiving an improvement in their own communication skills during the feedback phases.

Language disorders are characterized by impairments in verbal expression/understanding, including difficulties with one or more language components. The Virtual Reality Rehabilitation System (VRRS) is a bioelectromedical device equipped with exercise sections aimed at improving cognitive and language deficits. It also increases patient motivation and engagement. The aim of our study was to test the feasibility and efficacy of VRRS intervention to improve speech therapy treatment for children with speech disorders. Thirty-two patients were enrolled in this study and randomly assigned to the experimental (EG) or control group (CG). The CG underwent conventional speech therapy, while EG underwent VRRS-implemented speech therapy. Both groups were evaluated before (T0) and after (T1) the intervention using the Language Assessment Test. The results showed improvements in both groups. However, the EG group showed greater improvement in various areas, including comprehension of total words, repetition, naming of body parts, naming of everyday objects, total naming, morphosyntactic accuracy, sentence construction, average length of utterance, and spontaneous word production. This study demonstrated that VRRS can be a valuable tool for implementing effective speech rehabilitation. Further studies are needed, as the use of VRRS is still in its early stages, requiring larger samples sizes and long-term follow-up.

Introduction: A clinical audit is a tool that allows the evaluation of and improvement in the quality of stroke care processes. Fast, high-quality care and preventive interventions can reduce the negative impact of stroke. Objective: This review was conducted on studies investigating the effectiveness of clinical audits to improve the quality of stroke rehabilitation and stroke prevention. Method: We reviewed clinical trials involving stroke patients. Our search was performed on PubMed databases, Web of Science, and Cochrane library databases. Of the 2543 initial studies, 10 studies met the inclusion criteria. Results: Studies showed that an audit brought an improvement in rehabilitation processes when it included a team of experts, an active training phase with facilitators, and short-term feedback. In contrast, studies looking at an audit in stroke prevention showed contradictory results. Conclusions: A clinical audit highlights any deviations from clinical best practices in order to identify the causes of inefficient procedures so that changes can be implemented to improve the care system. In the rehabilitation phase, the audit is effective for improving the quality of care processes.

Telemedicine is a process of delivering health care using information and communication technologies. Audit and feedback (A&F) constitute a systematic intervention that is aimed at collecting data, which are subsequently compared with reference standards and then returned to health care operators through feedback meetings. The aim of this review is to analyse different audit procedures on and by mean of telemedicine services and to identify a practice that is more effective than the others. Systematic searches were performed in three databases evaluating studies focusing on clinical audits performed on and by means of telemedicine systems. Twenty-five studies were included in the review. Most of them focused on telecounselling services with an audit and a maximum duration of one year. Recipients of the audit were telemedicine systems and service users (general practitioners, referring doctors, and patients). Data resulting from the audit were inherent to the telemedicine service. The overall data collected concerned the number of teleconsultations, service activity, reasons for referral, response times, follow-up, reasons why treatment was not completed, technical issues, and other information specific to each telemedicine service. Only two of the considered studies dealt with organizational aspects, and of these, only one analysed communicative aspects. The complexity and heterogeneity of the treatments and services provided meant that no index of uniformity could be identified. Certainly, some audits were performed in an overlapping manner in the different studies, and these show that although attention is often paid to workers’ opinions, needs, and issues, little interest was shown in communicative/organizational and team dynamics. Given the importance and influence that communication has in teamwork and care settings, an audit protocol that takes into account intra- and extra-team communication processes could be essential to improving the well-being of operators and the quality of the service provided.

Audit and Feedback (A & F) is considered one of the most significant tools for implementing continuous Quality Improvement (QI) in the healthcare field. The audit process is a structured inspection of professional practice against known standards or targets. The results of this inspection are subsequently feedback from professionals in order to implement an improvement process. The Italian Ministry of Health has recently funded the network project EASY-NET, with the main objective of evaluating the effectiveness of A&F strategies to improve healthcare practice and equity in various clinical and organizational settings in seven Italian regions. The Sicily region is represented within the EASY-NET project by the IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino-Pulejo of Messina as the Work Package 7 (WP7). One of the objectives of the WP7 is to assess mechanisms and tools to enhance the effectiveness of A&F strategies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence that training interventions can have on improving knowledge of A&F strategies among healthcare professionals. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest evaluation strategy. The participants’ initial knowledge of A&F strategies was evaluated through a baseline survey. Subsequently, the participants attended an online training workshop led by A&F experts, and a follow-up survey consisting of the same set of questions was conducted at the end of the process. Results showed statistically significant positive changes in the level of knowledge of A&F among participants following the training intervention. Furthermore, dividing the participants into two subgroups based on their professional background revealed significant differences in the level of knowledge of A&F methodologies between the observed categories of healthcare professionals. In conclusion, the study revealed that training interventions can be facilitators to implementing effective A&F programs.