On 1 July 1993 Victoria became the first Australian state to use casemix information to set budgets for its public hospitals commencing with casemix funding for inpatient services. Victoria's casemix funding approach now embraces inpatient, outpatient and rehabilitation services.

conclusions in spite of improvements in the national health indicator, different groups of people use health care services differently, but these inequities in hcu are related to social and individual factors. also, it is clear that health sector facilities and the accessibility to health services are not the only predictors. results 66.4% of those in need sought outpatient health care from whi...

background: diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease which many factors are involved and is developing considerably worldwide. increasing aging population and obesity in the societies has improved the scale of the type 2 diabetes significantly. the aim of this study was to determine the direct medical costs of outpatient cares of diabetes in iran. methods: active patients of isfahan endocrinology...

BACKGROUND Considerable attention has been given to the appropriateness of mental and medical health care provided to residents of certain assisted living facilities specialized for the severely mentally ill. However, there exists little objective evidence regarding the level of services provided by these facilities in general. AIMS OF THE STUDY To compare the use of mental and medical health...

OBJECTIVE To describe factors associated to inequalities in access to health care services and utilization for the elderly. METHODS Study part of the Health, Well-being and Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean ("SABE") Survey that included 2,143 elderly individuals aged 60 or older in the city of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil, in 2000. A two-step sampling procedure with probability propo...

BACKGROUND In older age health needs and demand for health services utilization increase. Individual's social relationships can play a decisive role regarding the utilization of outpatient health care services. This systematic review examines the associations of structural and functional dimensions of social relationships with outpatient health services use of older adults. METHODS The databa...

BACKGROUND Obesity is an independent risk factor for a variety of chronic diseases and is therefore a potential source of avoidable excess health care expenditures. Previous studies of obesity and health care costs have used group level data, applying estimates of population-attributable risks to estimates of US total costs of care for each obesity-related disease. OBJECTIVE To quantify the a...

objective: previous suicide interventional studies are controversial in their results. the present study compared brief intervention and contact (bic), with treatment as usual (tau) in their influence on the repetition of suicide attempts 6-month after the index suicide attempt. methods: adults who had attempted suicide were assigned two groups randomly: 311 in the tau and 321 in the bic. the b...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the costs of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outpatient treatment for individuals with different CD4 cell counts in the Brazilian public health system, and to compare to costs in other national health systems. METHODS A retrospective survey was conducted in five public outpatient clinics of the Brazilian national HIV program in the city of São Paulo. Data on healthcare...

Background: Overcrowding is an important problem for outpatient services in healthcare facilities. Patient flow analysis (PFA) is a useful method for identifying inefficiencies in and facilitating patient flow. Objective: PFA was used to estimate patient wait time and determine how different clinical disciplines impact wait times in the studied hospital.<...