BACKGROUND A small group of frequent visitors to emergency departments accounts for a disproportional large number of total emergency department visits. Previous interventions in this population have shown mixed results. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a nurse-managed telephone-based case-management intervention can reduce healthcare utilization and improve self-assessed health status in frequ...

introduction: increasing costs of health and treatment services has led health economics specialists and even physicians in all countries to seek new methods for controlling and reducing costs in medical and health services. the present study was aimed to estimate the costs of a cardiac care unit (ccu) in a governmental hospital in iran. methods: in order to determine the end cost, a stepwise p...

Our goal was to determine whether the type of primary care provider and the site of care influenced pharmaceutical costs and glycemic control at three Veterans Affairs outpatient clinics. Overall, we identified 4,265 veterans who received antihyperglycemic medications during 1997. We found that prescribing patterns, monthly total costs, and glycemic control differed according to hospital site. ...

OBJECTIVE To analyse predictors of costs in dementia from a societal perspective in a longitudinal setting. METHOD Healthcare resource use and costs were assessed retrospectively using a questionnaire in four waves at 6-month intervals in a sample of dementia patients (N = 175). Sociodemographic data, dementia severity and comorbidity at baseline, cognitive impairment and impairment in basic ...

OBJECTIVES The incidence of hepatitis A infections among young adults has recently increased in South Korea. Although universal vaccination has often been suggested to mitigate the problem, its rationale has not been well-understood. Estimating the societal costs of hepatitis A infections might support the development of intervention strategies. METHODS We classified hepatitis A infections in...

Nowadays, in highly competitive global markets and constant pressure to reduce total costs, enterprises consider group technology and Supply Chain Management (SCM) accordingly and usually separately as the key elements for intra and inter facilities improvement. Simultaneous consideration of the elements of these two disciplines in an integrated design can result in higher efficiency and ...

In an attempt to reduce health care expenses, regulated competition between health care providers has been introduced in The Netherlands. As for total hip and knee arthroplasties, health care providers have to publish their prices to make them available for the insurance companies and the public. Eventually, competition between health care providers should result in optimal care for lower price...

  Background: It has been suggested, although not proven, that presence of concomitant psychiatric disorders may increase the inpatient costs for patients undergoing elective surgery. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that elective lumbar fusion surgery is more costly in patients with under treatment for depression. Methods: This is a retrospective case-control study of 142 patient...

Purpose: To determine the total direct costs (fixed and variable costs) of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and MR tractography reconstruction of the brain. Materials and Methods: The direct fixed and variable costs of DTI with MR tractography were determined prospectively with time and motion analysis in a 1.5-Tesla MR scanner using 15 encoding directions. Seventeen patients with seizure disorde...