The aim of this study was to calculate the number and costs of hospital bed-days due to alcohol use in Ireland over the five year period 2000 to 2004. Age and sex specific Irish alcohol-attributable-fractions (AAFs) were developed by combining international risk estimates with Irish consumption data where available; where not available international AAFs were used. These were applied to nationa...

BACKGROUND Hospitals around the world are faced with the issue of boarders in emergency department (ED), patients marked for admission but with no available inpatient bed. Boarder status is known to be associated with delayed inpatient care and suboptimal outcomes. A new care delivery system was developed in our institution where boarders received full inpatient care from a designated medical t...

To identify the hospitals most strongly impacted by health insurance trends, this study investigated the relationships between hospital characteristics and patterns of insurance coverage in a national inpatient sample. Data from the 2007 Nationwide Inpatient Sample of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project were used to examine hospital characteristics, aggregated patient characteristics, a...

Equipping hospital beds uses a great deal of a hospital''''s resources. Therefore, it is essential to consider the hospital beds'''' efficiency. To increase its efficiency, a fuzzy unrestricted model for managing hospital expenses is presented in this paper. The lack of beds in hospitals leads to patients’ admission loss and consecutively profit loss. On the other hand, increasing the bed count...

BACKGROUND China is transitioning towards concentrating tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic and treatment services in hospitals, while the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) system will retain important public health functions. Patient expenditure incurred through hospitalization may lead to barriers to TB care or interruption of treatment. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We conducted a ...

OBJECTIVE To implement and evaluate the effect of a computerized decision support tool on antibiotic use in an intensive care unit (ICU). DESIGN Prospective before-and-after cohort study. SETTING Twenty-four bed tertiary hospital adult medical/surgical ICU. PARTICIPANTS All consecutive patients from May 2001 to November 2001 (N = 524) and March 2002 to September 2002 (N = 536). INTERVEN...

Objective-To examine whether there are too many hospital beds in London. Design-Analysis of data from the Hospital InPatient Enquiry, Mental Health Enquiry, health service indicators, and Emergency Bed Service. Setting-England, London, and inner London. Results-Hospital admission rates for acute plus geriatric services for London residents were very similar to the national values in all age gro...

Objectives: Patient safety is an important national issue. To date, there has been little attention paid to patient safety in rural hospitals, which make up nearly half of all U.S. hospitals. Information is needed to target interventions for improving patient safety. Our objective was to determine how patient safety rates, offered services, and patient mix vary by bed count among rural hospital...