BACKGROUND When prearranged standard surgical trays contain instruments that are repeatedly unused, the redundancy can result in unnecessary health care costs. Our objective was to estimate potential savings by performing an economic evaluation comparing the cost of surgical trays with redundant instruments with surgical trays with reduced instruments ("reduced trays"). METHODS We performed a...

BACKGROUND The symptoms and treatments for nasal obstruction are numerous and common. Yet, a consensus on a surgical approach or, even more importantly, how to define the success of any approach is lacking in the literature. A disease-specific outcomes instrument recently developed by the American Academy of Otolaryngology, known as the Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) scale, has all...

Infiltration is a common source of heat loss, especially in older homes. This case study focused on a 1924 house in the downtown Eugene area. Infiltration in this home is excessive due to a basement door left open at all times, a fireplace lacking a damper, and vents left over from a defunct oil heater. We hypothesized that sealing these large leaks would reduce the infiltration by 50%. A blowe...

This article looks at how healthcare IT can save hospitals and health services valuable funding and how these saving compare to the costs involved. The chief barriers to success and possible solutions to these difficulties are outlined. The author also points to the need for government intervention in implementing healthcare IT on a board scale. RICHARD HILLESTAD, PHD SENIOR MANAGEMENT SCIENTIS...

In order to investigate the issues in measurement of value of travel time savings (VTTS), the willingness-to-accept (WTA) for the private car owner is studied by using surveyed data. It is convincing that trip purpose, trip length, time savings, cost savings, income, and allowance from employee have effects on the WTA. Moreover, influences of these variables are not the same for different trip ...

BACKGROUND This study proposes a definition of futile care and quantifies its cost in injured elders. METHODS This was a retrospective study of Medicare patients with an International Classification of Diseases-9 injury diagnosis admitted to 171 Oregon and Washington facilities from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2002, who died within 6 months of admission. Futile care was defined as d...

Publicly funded family planning clinics serve millions of low-income women each year, providing a range of critical preventive services and enabling women to avoid unintended pregnancies. It is important to quantify the impact and cost-effectiveness of such services, in addition to these health benefits. Using a methodology similar to prior cost-benefit analyses, we estimated the numbers of uni...

BACKGROUND Health care systems around the world have started to develop pharmacists prescribing for minor ailments (PPMA) programs. These programs aim to improve the efficiency of care, reduce physician visits, and increase the accessibility to prescription medication (Rx). This study performed an economic impact analysis of the pharmacists prescribing for minor ailments program in Saskatchewan...

Our objective was to investigate the potential cost savings of immunization information systems (IIS) in performing some administrative tasks associated with the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program at the state and practice levels. VFC is an entitlement program providing free vaccine to eligible children. We timed the staff of the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) and 72 private VFC prac...

Purpose The Urban Zen (UZ) Initiative at Beth Israel Medical Center was a pilot project evaluating the impact of a multi-faceted “optimal healing environment” intervention on quality of life and cost outcomes for inpatients on a medical oncology floor. Little research exists on the question of potential cost savings. This poster presents a summary of our findings on cost outcomes from this Init...