BACKGROUND With the recognition that public hospitals are often productively inefficient, reforms have taken place worldwide to increase their administrative autonomy and financial responsibility. Reforms in China have been some of the most radical: the government budget for public hospitals was fixed, and hospitals had to rely on charges to fill their financing gap. Accompanying these changes ...

AIM To analyze hospital financing and delivery of inpatient services, financial requirements of the hospitals, and their ability to meet these requirements were determined. METHODS Data on financial performance of 41 hospitals were collected using a standardized questionnaire. Patient survey, group discussions with hospital administrators, and interviews with policy-makers were also used. R...

Laparoscopic hernia operations have been criticized in regard to their high hospital costs. This study was designed to compare the costs and some outcome features of totally extraperitoneal endoscopic hernia operation (TEP) and Lichtenstein mesh repair (OPN) among 45 randomized employed patients. The medians of operative time in the TEP and OPN groups were 67.5 and 53 min, respectively. Return ...

BACKGROUND The disease burden of influenza among children in China has not been well described. OBJECTIVE To estimate the influenza-associated excess hospitalization rate and compare the hospitalization length and costs between pneumonia and influenza (P&I) and other community-acquired diseases (CAD) in Suzhou, China. METHODS We retrospectively collected hospital discharge data on pediatric...

Quality improvement is needed to meet the demands for quality while simultaneously reducing the cost of delivered health care. In a competitive market of corporate hospitals, quality improvement would lower the proportion of unit cost relative to potential revenue thereby increasing profit. For public hospitals, the mandate for 'minimum quality', which is the basis for accreditation, could also...

Protein-energy undernutrition, or the possibility of its development, has been documented to occur frequently in surgical patients admitted to hospital. Nutritional status is known to deteriorate over the course of the hospital stay, with poor awareness by medical and nursing staff as to the deleterious effects of impaired nutritional status on clinical outcome and hospital costs. While there i...

Pooled data from trials comparing nesiritide with dobutamine for treatment of acute decompensated congestive heart failure were combined with national hospital cost data in an economic model. Results indicate that the acquisition cost of nesiritide is fully offset by decreased hospital costs.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health appointed an Expert Panel to assess the problem of health care-associated infections (HAI) in the state and make recommendations regarding mandatory reporting. At the Expert Panel's request, a cost-of-illness study was conducted using available data sources. In Massachusetts, the excess hospital costs attributed to HAIs were estimated at approximate...

AIMS Aim of this observational study is to evaluate the clinical performance of a Syncope Unit, in order to assess whether the implemented organization really improves syncope management. METHODS AND RESULTS The study enrolled patients with unexplained syncope who were consecutively referred to our Syncope Unit, either as outpatients or during hospitalization, in a 2-month period. The design ...