OBJECTIVE This study examined whether parenting, specifically parental support, structure, and behavioral control, predicted early childhood health care use and moderated the negative effects of socioeconomic disadvantage. METHODS A sample of 250 parent-child dyads from a longitudinal intergenerational research program participated. RESULTS Greater parental support was associated with incre...

There is continuing controversy about the extent to which publicly insured children are treated differently than privately insured children, and whether differences in treatment matter. We show that on average, hospitals are less likely to admit publicly insured children than privately insured children who present at the ER and the gap grows during high flu weeks, when hospital beds are in high...

Th e search for interventions to reduce avoidable readmissions aft er an exacerbation of COPD has attracted substantial attention aft er the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services included COPD exacerbations in its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. 1 We read with great interest the study by Jennings et al 2 in a recent issue of CHEST (May 2015) and applaud the authors for conducting a ...

Introduction. The main objective of research was to compare different methods of assessing the contribution of alcohol to injuries and medical conditions treated in the emergency room (ER) in Poland. Four methods are discussed, including breathalyser readings, clinical appraisal following Y91 ICD-10 codes, interviewer’s observations and self-reports. Methods. In two Polish cities, Warsaw and So...

BACKGROUND All published studies of health care utilization in gout have been cross-sectional to date, and most used a patient-reported diagnosis of gout. Our objective was to assess health care utilization and its predictors in patients with physician-confirmed gout in a prospective cohort study. METHODS In a multi-center prospective cohort study of U.S. veterans with rheumatologist-confirme...

BACKGROUND Urgent clinician notification of low hemoglobin values is a common practice. The effect of such notification for samples obtained during an office visit is uncertain. METHODS We notified the attending physicians in 100 consecutive cases of outpatients with hemoglobin <80 g/L. We reviewed the medical charts of these patients with their personal physicians 1-2 months later. We consid...