BACKGROUND Patients with low-risk chest pain are frequently readmitted for evaluation of recurrent chest pain. It is unknown whether stress testing during the first admission for chest pain is a cost-effective means of reducing readmissions. METHODS Using a hospital administrative database, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients aged ≥18 years admitted under "observation status...

BACKGROUND Patient safety and emergency department (ED) functionality are compromised when inefficient coordination between hospital departments impedes ED patients' access to inpatient cardiac care. The objective of this study was to determine how bed demand from competing cardiology admission sources affects ED patients' access to inpatient cardiac care. METHODS A stochastic discrete event ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the direct costs of treating asthma in Kuwait. MATERIALS AND METHODS Population figures were obtained from the 2005 census and projected to 2008. Treatment profiles were obtained from the Asthma Insights and Reality for the Gulf and Near East (AIRGNE) study. Asthma prevalence and unit cost estimates were based on results from a Delphi technique. These estimates were appl...

BACKGROUND Inpatient administrative datasets often exclude observation stays, as observation is considered to be outpatient care. The extent to which this status is applied to pediatric hospitalizations is not known. OBJECTIVE To characterize trends in observation status code utilization and 1-day stays among children admitted from the emergency department (ED), and to compare patient charact...

CT has become an invaluable diagnostic tool. The clinical applications and technological capacity of CT has continued to increase. There is an increasing demand for radiology services including during weekend on-call hours. The objective of this study was to assess the trend in weekend CT imaging requests over a ten-year period form 2001-2010. Electronic data was retrieved from the hospital Rad...

Reduction of the inappropriate hospital patient stay for hospitals has been an important issue for healthcare policy-makers and practitioners. Understanding factors influencing the likelihood of inappropriate hospital patient stay is critical in developing healthcare policy for reducing inappropriate hospital utilization. Hence, the present study aims to determine factors of inappropriate hospi...

OBJECTIVE To compare influenza vaccine effectiveness in the general practice and hospital settings. DESIGN Analysis of annual case test-negative studies. SETTING Victorian sentinel hospitals and general practices, 2011-2013. PARTICIPANTS Patients presenting to general practitioners, or those admitted to hospital with an influenza-like illness who were tested for influenza using a polymera...

We examined the use patterns and costs of care for a validated stroke cohort (n = 172) from 13 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers 1 year poststroke. Decision Support System (DSS) cost and use data (inpatient and outpatient) are profiled. We provide preliminary information about the costs associated with inpatient and outpatient care and explore the relationship between the cost...

To evaluate the impact of race on mental health care utilization among older patients within given clinical psychiatric diagnoses, the authors examined a retrospective sample of 23,718 elderly veterans treated in Department of Veterans Affairs inpatient facilities in 1994. Significant racial differences in mental health care utilization found over a subsequent 2-year period were related to outp...

Misclassification of race and ethnicity in administrative data may produce misleading results if it is overlooked or ignored. In this study, we examined the racial/ethnic classifications of 1,084 veterans with stroke in Florida who received inpatient and outpatient services within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system and who were also eligible for Medicare between 2000 and ...