BACKGROUND Many published reports on cost of counseling give a fixed cost per hour of service. These estimates may be flawed. AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of this study is to show, by way of an example, how cost of an hour of counseling depends on the nature of the patient, in general, and length of the patient s stay, in particular. Even though the health care professional provides the same...

Results: There were no in-hospital deaths in the hybrid group, compared with 2 (3.8%) observed in the matched group (P1⁄4 .11). Death, renal failure, or stroke occurred in 1 (1.5%) in the hybrid group versus 15 (28.8%) in the conventional group (P 1⁄4 .001). The median number of days between PCI and surgery was 24 (interquartile range, 2.5-37). At surgery, 23 hybrid patients were receiving both...

Simultaneous knee arthroplasty is associated with significant blood loss. To prevent transfusion, three preoperative doses of epoetin-α were offered to mildly anemic simultaneous knee arthroplasty patients. A retrospective review, using ICD-9 codes, identified twenty patients from 2007-2009. Epoetin-α increased hemoglobin levels preoperatively (12.6 to 13.9, p<0.01). Twenty patients who did not...

Background: In standard cholecystectomy gall bladder is approached through a subcostal incision of 710cm. New techniques and procedures have evolved, aiming at decreased tissue damage, pain, hospital stay, and complications. This study was conducted to assess cholecystectomy through 5cm mini laparotomy. Material & Methods: This descriptive study was conducted at department of Surgery Khyber Tea...

Even if calculating the exact cost of burn treatment is a very hard task, the study of cost analysis provides financial perspective. We performed a cost analysis study in our burn centre to respond to questions about total patient treatment cost and the length of hospital stay. We reviewed all patients admitted to the Gulhane Military Medical Academy Burn Centre in Ankara, Turkey, between March...

Laboratories are required to have a critical values policy as a patient safety measure. Serum sodium commonly is included in critical results lists, but a wide range of values are used. We studied all critical serum and whole blood sodium results called to clinicians during a 6-month period. Patients' electronic medical records were reviewed for clinical responses and patient outcomes. Of the 1...

Modelling patient flow in health care systems is considered vital in understanding the system's activity and may therefore prove to be useful in improving their functionality. A measure, extensively used, is the average length of stay which, although easy to calculate and quantify, assumes normally distributed data thus making the subsequent modelling of resources totally unsuitable. In fact, s...

Aims and method South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust developed a system of weekend new patient reviews by higher trainees to provide senior medical input 7 days a week. To evaluate the effectiveness of these reviews, the notes for all patients admitted over 3 months were examined. The mean length of stay for patients before and after the introduction of the weekend new pati...

A retrospective review of 27 patients who underwent endovascular repair of thoracic aneurysms and of other thoracic aortic pathology with the thoracic aortic endograft (Gore Medical, Flagstaff, AZ) from June 2005 to July 2007 was performed. The mean follow-up period was 13.5 months (range, 2-25 months). Indications for thoracic endografting included descending thoracic aneurysms (n = 18), thora...