📄 Category

health systems and quality improvement

98 papers

Improving health systems means finding smarter ways to deliver care, reduce errors, and ensure patients receive the best possible treatment. This field explores how hospitals and clinics can function more effectively, focusing on the practical changes that lead to better outcomes for everyone involved. It is less about discovering new drugs and more about refining the everyday processes that keep our healthcare networks running smoothly.

At Gist.Science, we track every new preprint in this category from medRxiv to bring you the latest research immediately. Our team processes these papers to provide both detailed technical summaries for experts and clear, plain-language explanations for anyone interested in how healthcare can improve. We believe that understanding these systemic changes is vital for building a more resilient future.

Below are the latest studies and insights from the health systems and quality improvement community, sorted by their recent submission dates.

📄 health systems and quality improvement

Beyond Injection Detection: A Positive-Security Prompt Firewall that Closes the Scope and PHI Gap SOTA Classifiers Miss in Healthcare

This paper introduces QFIRE, a high-performance Rust-based prompt firewall that addresses critical gaps in healthcare AI safety by combining positive security scope constraints, PHI-specific detection, and de-obfuscation techniques to effectively block legitimate-looking data exfiltration and out-of-scope requests that state-of-the-art injection classifiers miss, all while maintaining low latency and deterministic auditability.

Schwoebel, J., Semenec, I., Rousseva, J., Frasch, M. G., Thorstenson, R., Bhatt, M.2026-06-06
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Clinician-Centered Evaluation of Large Language Model-Generated Discharge Summaries for Longer Hospitalizations: Insights from Hospitalists and Primary Care Physicians

This study demonstrates that large language models generate discharge summaries for longer, complex hospitalizations that are preferred by both hospitalists and primary care physicians over human-authored versions, offering superior quality, readability, and completeness while reducing omissions and supporting better post-discharge care transitions.

Osborne, T., Mahmud, T., Zheng, X., Jampala, S., Abbasi, S., Hong, S., Kranz, K., Lee, S., Ng, P., Odekon, K., Schachter (…)2026-06-05
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Coverage, Utilisation and Users of a Chat-Based Digital Primary Care Clinic in Publicly Funded Healthcare: A Registry-Based Observational Study in Finland

This registry-based observational study in Finland demonstrates that the introduction of a 24/7 chat-based digital clinic significantly increased primary care coverage and the proportion of digital encounters by 2025, with usage concentrated among younger, healthier individuals managing minor acute conditions, while approximately 60% of care pathways were resolved entirely within the digital channel.

Dahlberg, A., Kaartinen, T., Jukarainen, S., Orre, P.2026-06-04
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Systematic Analysis of Housing Referral Outcomes in New York City's WholeYouNYC Social Care Network: Identifying Barriers to Service Connection

This mixed-methods study of 4,258 housing referrals within New York City's WholeYouNYC network reveals a 45% acceptance rate and identifies systemic barriers such as CBO response delays, missing documentation, and client engagement challenges, prompting recommendations for standardized protocols and automated follow-ups to improve service connection.

Conde, F.2026-05-22
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and psychometric evaluation of the colour blind quality of life scale into Vietnamese

This study successfully translated, culturally adapted, and validated the Colour Blind Quality of Life Scale into Vietnamese, demonstrating that the modified CBQoL-VN is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing quality of life in individuals with congenital colour vision deficiency in Vietnam.

Thuy, T. T., Woi, P. J., Hairol, M. I., Vu, Q. A.2026-05-20
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Assessment of the laboratory capacity for testing Sexual Transmitted Infections at 14 health facilities in Moshi Municipality, Tanzania

A 2023 cross-sectional study of 14 health facilities in Moshi Municipality, Tanzania, reveals a critical lack of advanced laboratory capacity for diagnosing sexually transmitted infections and monitoring antimicrobial resistance, highlighting an urgent need for infrastructure investment and training to improve STI management.

Mosha, V. V., Samky, E., Ngowi, G., Msemwa, M., Macha, D., Mwita, W., Maokola, W., Lyimo, J., Harrison, O. B., Msuya, S. (…)2026-05-18
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Integrating Antimicrobial Stewardship and Infection Prevention Through Repeated Assessment and Feedback: A Multisite Quality Improvement Initiative in Viet Nam

This multisite quality improvement initiative in Vietnam demonstrates that an integrated antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention approach, utilizing repeated assessments and feedback, is feasible and effectively drives meaningful improvements in hospital practices and governance to combat antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries.

Nguyen, P. Q., Tran, G. V., Nguyen, Y. H., Pham, O. T. P., Nguyen, C. T., Vu, D. M., Tran, C. A., Nguyen, D. T. N., Nguy (…)2026-05-17
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Exploration of barriers to providing mental health care and factors supporting access to mental health care in Australian prisons

This qualitative study identifies key barriers such as stigma, insufficient resourcing, and systemic tensions, alongside supporting factors like care equivalence and coordination, to guide improved mental health service design and policy for Australian prisons.

Comben, C., Burgess, M., Rutherford, Z., Meurk, C., Rivas, L., John, J., Diminic, S.2026-05-14
📄 health systems and quality improvement

The Relatives Experience Questionnaire for Acute Inpatient Child and Adolescence Mental Health Services (REQ-AICAMHS): reliability and validity following a Norwegian survey

This study aims to develop and psychometrically evaluate the first instrument, the Relatives Experience Questionnaire for Acute Inpatient Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (REQ-AICAMHS), to measure and improve the experiences of relatives of adolescents in Norwegian acute inpatient mental health units.

Haugum, M., Hestad Iversen, H., Arellano Lorenzen, K. E., Siqveland, J., Bjertnaes, O.2026-05-08
📄 health systems and quality improvement

Multi-LLM Disagreement as a Scalable Detector of Human Annotation Errors in Structured Data from Clinical Free-Text

This study demonstrates that disagreement among multiple locally hosted large language models serves as a highly accurate, scalable, and GDPR-compliant signal to prioritize human review of clinical annotation errors, effectively identifying the small subset of low-agreement cases that contain the majority of mistakes.

Wittlinger, S., Meerjansen, J., Wolf, F., Wiest, I. C., Ebert, M. P., Siegel, F., Belle, S.2026-05-06