At the request of counsel for the Montana Department of Justice (the "Department"), National Economic Research Associates, Inc. (NERA) has reviewed the public record relating to the application of two Great Falls hospitals to receive a Certificate of Public Advantage (COPA) from the State of Montana. This record generally includes the materials, dated October 2, 1995, that were submitted by the...

OBJECTIVES A tele-intensive care unit (tele-ICU) uses telemedicine in an intensive care unit (ICU) setting, applying technology to provide care to critically ill patients by off-site clinical resources. The purpose of this review was to examine the implementation, adoption, and utilization of tele-ICU systems by hospitals to determine their efficiency and efficacy as identified by cost savings ...

BACKGROUND Dengue-related illness is a leading cause of hospitalization and death, particularly among children. Practical, acceptable and affordable measures are urgently needed to protect this age group. Schools where children spend most of their day is proposed as an ideal setting to implement preventive strategies against day-biting Aedes mosquitoes. The use of insecticide-treated school uni...

OBJECTIVE Intranasal influenza vaccine has proven clinical efficacy and may be better tolerated by young children and their families than an injectable vaccine. This study determined the potential cost-effectiveness (CE) of an intranasal influenza vaccine among healthy children. METHODS We conducted a CE analysis of data collected between 1996 and 1998 during a prospective 2-year efficacy tri...

INTRODUCTION Fluid strategies may impact on patient outcomes in major elective surgery. We aimed to study the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pre-operative fluid loading in high-risk surgical patients undergoing major elective surgery. METHODS This was a pragmatic, non-blinded, multi-centre, randomised, controlled trial. We sought to recruit 128 consecutive high-risk surgical patients...