OBJECTIVE To find out if there was a difference between hospital consultants, all trained in acute general medicine, in length of stay (LOS), re-admission rates, resource utilisation, and diagnostic coding, among patients admitted as emergencies to St James' Hospital (SJH) Dublin. METHODS A retrospective analysis was performed of data on discharges from hospital, recorded in the hospital in-p...

BACKGROUND In July 1994 an alternative funding plan for clinical services (global funding instead of fee-for-service payment) was established at the Southeastern Ontario Health Sciences Centre, Kingston, Ont. This study describes the perceptions of the referring physicians and consultants of the effects of the alternative funding plan 2.5 years after it was initiated. METHODS A questionnaire ...

OBJECTIVE To describe how the tobacco industry developed a network of consultants to promote ventilation as a "solution" to secondhand smoke (SHS) in the USA. METHODS Analysis of previously secret tobacco industry documents. RESULTS As with its other strategies to undermine the passage of clean indoor legislation and regulations, the tobacco industry used consultants who represented themsel...

OBJECTIVES The requirement in Northern Ireland to prescribe biological agents according to National Institute for Clinical Excellence/British Society for Rheumatology (NICE/BSR) guidelines and within a fixed budget has created a waiting list for treatment that has no parallel in the Republic of Ireland. The study investigated the bearing this situation may have had on consultants' judgements in...