OBJECTIVE To test the effect of patient counseling using educational tools, on rates of return for follow-up in newly diagnosed hypertensive and/or diabetic patients in a rural African context. METHODS Free screening for hypertension and elevated blood glucose was offered in primary health care centers in central Cameroon during 9 campaigns of 3 days each. Individuals with untreated hypertens...

out that we do not know if physicians had asked patients to return after prescribing an antibiotic. There are certainly limitations to the use of medical billing data: (1) we could not measure the severity of a patient’s illness, (2) we were unable to capture any information about clinician recommendations for return visits, and (3) we did not collect ICD-9 codes for adverse events, which may b...

Patients with newly found raised blood pressure are known to have lower pressures at subsequent measurements even when not treated. A study was undertaken to determine the extent to which (a) the number of follow-up measurements and (b) the duration of the intervals between them contributed to this fall in pressure. In 42 general practices 110 patients were identified as having for the first ti...

BACKGROUND Disease management programs are expected (and usually contractually required) to reduce total costs in the diseases they manage. OBJECTIVES To discuss the appropriateness of using utilization indexes in lieu of cost and the importance of reviewing utilization trends to determine whether sufficient opportunity exists for a program to be financially effective; and to conduct an analy...

INTRODUCTION This study serves to identify the reasons for unscheduled return visits to the emergency department (ED), paying particular attention to system, physician and patient factors. Its purpose is to highlight inadequacies and plan strategies to reduce re-attendance. METHODS All patients returning to the ED within 72 hours of initial visit were identified between January 2005 and June ...

OBJECTIVES Older patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) have difficulty comprehending discharge plans and are at high risk of adverse outcomes. The authors investigated whether a postdischarge telephone call-mediated intervention by a nurse would improve discharge care plan adherence, specifically by expediting post-ED visit physician follow-up appointments and/or compliance wit...

The health reform law boosted Medicare fees for primary care ambulatory visits by 10 percent for five years starting in 2011. Using a simulation model with real-world parameters, we evaluate the effects of a permanent 10 percent increase in these fees. Our analysis shows the fee increase would increase primary care visits by 8.8 percent, and raise the overall cost of primary care visits by 17 p...

1Directorate General of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health, Baghdad, Iraq. 2Institute of Tuberculosis and Chest Disease, Baghdad, Iraq. 3 Department of Community Medicine, Al Nahrain Medical College, Baghdad, Iraq. ABSTRACT Over a period of 6 months the effect of home visits on compliance with directly observed therapy, short course (DOTS), was studied on 480 new smear-positive tuberculosi...