Late referral of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and unforeseeable deterioration of residual renal function in known CKD patients remain a major problem leading to the need of unplanned start on chronic dialysis without a mature access for dialysis. In most centres worldwide, these patients are started on haemodialysis (HD) using a temporary tunnelled central venous catheter (CVC) fo...

BACKGROUND Unplanned pregnancy is a key public health indicator. We describe the prevalence of unplanned pregnancy, and associated factors, in a general population sample in Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). METHOD We did a probability sample survey, the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3), of 15,162 men and women aged 16-74 years in Britain, including 56...

Introduction: Unplanned pregnancy has been associated with postpartum depression but there is little information about other psycho-emotional disorders. Objective: We aimed to determine the presence of psycho-emotional disorders in women with unplanned pregnancy. Methods: Six-hundred and four women were recruited and divided into two groups: One consisting of 302 women with unplanned pregnancie...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Unplanned extubation can be a significant event that places the patient at risk for adverse events. Our goal was to reduce unplanned extubations to,1 unplanned extubation per 100 patient-intubated days. METHODS: All unplanned extubations in the NICU beginning in October 2009 were audited. Data collected included time of day, patient weight, and patient care activity a...

BACKGROUND Identifying risk factors for unplanned extubation in patients receiving mechanical ventilation can help guide prevention strategies. OBJECTIVE To assess the risk of unplanned extubation with different sedation strategies. METHODS A 36-month quality improvement study in a 33-bed intensive care unit at a tertiary-care center. RESULTS A total of 92 unplanned extubations occurred (...

BACKGROUND Many patients with kidney failure "crash" onto dialysis or initiate dialysis in an unplanned fashion. There are varying definitions, but essentially, a patient is labeled as having a crash dialysis start if he or she has little to no care by a nephrologist prior to starting dialysis. A patient is labeled as having an unplanned dialysis start when he or she starts dialysis with a cath...

BACKGROUND Unplanned extubations can lead to iatrogenic injury and have the potential to contribute to serious safety events. We adopted lean methodology to reduce the unplanned extubation rate in a Level 3b NICU. We hypothesized that the use of a rapid-cycle PDSA (plan, do, study, act) initiative would reduce the unplanned extubation rate. METHODS Baseline unplanned extubation data were coll...

BACKGROUND Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) accounts for around 4% of all public hospital annual admissions in Hong Kong. By year 2020, COPD will be ranked fifth among the conditions with the highest burden to the society. This study identifies admission and unplanned readmission of COPD patients, factors affecting unplanned readmission, and estimates its cost burden on the public h...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Unplanned extubation can be a significant event that places the patient at risk for adverse events. Our goal was to reduce unplanned extubations to <1 unplanned extubation per 100 patient-intubated days. METHODS All unplanned extubations in the NICU beginning in October 2009 were audited. Data collected included time of day, patient weight, and patient care activity ...