Background and aims: Visit quality is a crucial component of patient-physician interaction that its inadequacy can negatively influence the diagnosis and treatment efficiency. The waiting time and visit length are important determinants of quality in the outpatient care setting. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine waiting time and visit length and to compare them befor...

BACKGROUND In high-income countries, national mortality audits are associated with improved quality of care, but there has been no previous systematic review of perinatal audit in low- and middle-income settings. OBJECTIVES To present a systematic review of facility-based perinatal mortality audit in low- and middle-income countries, and review information regarding community audit. RESULTS...

In this study the expectations of consumers of public sector psychiatric care in South Africa were identified, and formulated in the form of 13 standards, each with a set of criteria. During this phase input from the literature was incorporated, and expectations were validated with different groups of consumers, so that rural/urban, ethnicity and regional differences were taken into account. Ba...

BACKGROUND We performed a clinical audit of preoperative rectal cancer treatment at two European radiotherapy centres (Poland and Spain). The aim was to independently verify adherence to a selection of indicators of treatment quality and to identify any notable inter-institutional differences. METHODS A total of 162 patients, in Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) 68 and in Greater Poland Can...

Acknowledgement: The authors would like to thank Jean Anderson from Development Communications Consultants, Inc., Oyster Bay, New York, for her help in media production and comments, and Jeshda Kittikool and the staff at the Department of Biostatistics and Computer Services, the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, for their help in data processing. This work was carried out with support...

The Mexican rice borer, Eoreuma loftini (Dyar) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is an invasive species that originated from Mexico, and it is threatening to cause major economic losses to sugarcane, Saccharum spp., and rice, Oryza sativa L., industries in Louisiana. The insect is expected to reach sugarcane and riceproduction areas inLouisianaby2008, and infest all ofLouisiana sugarcane and rice indus...