Hospitals are under significant pressure from payers to reduce costs. The single largest fixed cost for a hospital is inpatient beds, yet there is significant variation in hospital capacity utilization. We study bed capacity in New York City hospital obstetrics units and find that while many hospitals have an insufficient number of beds to provide timely access to care, overall there is signifi...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to estimate the effects of risk factors on elective and emergency caesarean section (CS) and to estimate the between-hospital variation of risk-adjusted CS proportions. DESIGN Historical registry-based cohort study. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS The study was based on all singleton deliveries in hospital units in Denmark from January 2009 to December 2012. A...

BACKGROUND There is good evidence to support the use of a "protective" ventilation strategy, using small tidal volumes and inspiratory pressures, in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Many general intensive care units in the UK are being slow to adopt this approach and we therefore set out to devise a method to audit ventilation and possibly influence practice in these units. ...

TO THE EDITOR—How best to evaluate the effect of quaternary ammonium compound–based products after detection of postflood bacterial and fungal air bioburden remains uncertain. Thammasat University Hospital (Thailand) closed after severe black-water flooding in 2011; significant resources and costs were associated with hospital closure, reparations, and tiered reopening of select units [1]. In a...

BACKGROUND The VELO study is a comparative study of two Community Mental Health Centres (CMHC) in Northern Norway. The CMHCs are organized differently: one has no local inpatient unit, the other has three. Both CMHCs use the Central Mental Hospital situated rather far away for compulsory and other admissions, but one uses mainly local beds while the other uses only central hospital beds. In thi...

We prospectively analysed hospital stay, discharge policy, hospital cost and postoperative recovery of 102 consecutive total hip arthroplasties performed in a Belgian university hospital during a one-year period starting in October 2001. Of the independent patients, 87.4% regained independence after 6 weeks and 19.6% used rehabilitation units. Preoperative residence, hip function and mental sco...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Excessive requests for cross matching blood which is more than the blood required for transfusion are usually based on worst case assumptions leading to overestimation of blood usage. We investigated the blood ordering pattern and transfusion practices so as to incorporate a blood ordering schedule for streamlining the use of blood in various hospital departments. METHODS ...