OBJECTIVE To assess the performance of the newly implemented Canadian Emergency Department Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) triage system in a redesigned 200-bed community hospital emergency department (ED) and to evaluate the predictive validity of CTAS in this setting. METHODS Triage system performance was analyzed on the basis of 4 quality indicators: time to triage; triage duration; proport...

FROM time to time assessments have been made of the number of hospital beds required per thousand of the population served. In 1950 the Ministry of Health published a Memorandum on the Development of Consultant Services which, on the overall pattern suggests a figure of from six to seven acute beds per thousand, excluding maternity beds. It is, however, essential to define the particular area, ...

An efficient bed allocation management GIS based system tool, eBeds, is being developed within the hospital environment to meet the health industry’s patient management protocols and to address community concerns. Inefficiencies and continuing difficulties in management of available and appropriate beds within hospitals have not been overcome and continue to be a source of practical, financial ...

We made a mistake in the numbering of the y axis of figure 3 in this Data Briefing article by

AUTHORS Evan Fieldston, MD, MBA, MSHP1,2,3,4,5, Meera Ragavan, BSE, BA2, Bhuvaneswari Jayaraman, MPH2, Joshua Metlay, MD, PhD5,6, Susmita Pati, MD, MPH5,7 1Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2Division of General Pediatrics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 3PolicyLab, The Children...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to conduct an economic evaluation of voriconazole compared with conventional amphotericin B deoxycholate (CAB) using data from a recently reported randomized comparative trial in patients with various underlying immunosuppressive conditions. This trial demonstrated the superiority of voriconazole in terms of clinical response, survival and safety when u...

As I sat down to write this editorial, I was paged by a colleague who had just learned that she may have pulmonary tuberculosis. She had a very strong exposure history in a highly endemic area of the world within the past year, a positive tuberculin skin test, and a “soft” but compatible history of recent symptoms. Her only available diagnostic test, a chest radiograph, obtained because of a no...

Background. Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) are crucial to optimize antimicrobial utilization in critical care. Prospective audit and feedback is the major intervention used by stewardship programs, yet the impact on clinicians’ antimicrobial prescribing behaviours outside of the stewardship environment is unknown. We sought to understand if skills learned during prospective audit and ...

OBJECTIVE The authors examine patterns in utilization of psychiatric inpatient services by children and adolescents in general hospitals during 1988-1995. METHOD National Hospital Discharge Survey data were used to describe utilization patterns for children and adolescents with primary psychiatric diagnoses in general hospitals from 1988 to 1995. RESULTS During the study period, there was a...