OBJECTIVES Using the concept of avoidable mortality, international studies suggest that healthcare has been effective in reducing mortality. This paper provides an analysis of avoidable mortality in Australia and compares trends with those of Western Europe. METHODS Using unit-record mortality data, we calculated avoidable mortality rates in Australia for 1968-2001. We partitioned avoidable c...

BACKGROUND Urgent, unplanned hospital readmissions are increasingly being used to gauge the quality of care. We reviewed urgent readmissions to determine which were potentially avoidable and compared rates of all-cause and avoidable readmissions. METHODS In a multicentre, prospective cohort study, we reviewed all urgent readmissions that occurred within six months among patients discharged to...

BACKGROUND Deaths attributed to lack of preventive health care or timely and effective medical care can be considered avoidable. In this report, avoidable causes of death are either preventable, as in preventing cardiovascular events by addressing risk factors, or treatable, as in treating conditions once they have occurred. Although various definitions for avoidable deaths exist, studies have ...

“Avoidable rework” is effort spent fixing difficulties with the software that could have been avoided or discovered earlier and less expensively. This definition implies that there is such thing as “unavoidable rework”. Reducing “avoidable rework” is a major source of software productivity improvement and most effort savings from improving software processes, architectures and risk management a...

BACKGROUND Avoidable mortality as an indicator for assessing the health system performance has caught the attention of researchers for a long time. In this study we aimed to compare the health system performance using this indicator in rural and urban areas of one of Iran's southern provinces. METHODS All deaths (29916) which happened during 2004-2011 in Bushehr province were assessed. Nolte ...

OBJECTIVES To measure variations in the Holland and Charlton classifications of avoidable death causes and to estimate the effect of the Spanish national health system on avoidable mortality. DESIGN Mortality in the Valencian Community was assessed between 1975 and 1990. The classifications of Holland and Charlton, used to assess avoidable causes of death, were compared. Holland's classificat...

OBJECTIVE Potentially avoidable hospitalizations have been identified by experts as leading to poor health outcomes and costly care. Potentially avoidable hospitalizations are particularly common among full-benefit dual eligible beneficiaries. This paper examines potentially avoidable hospitalizations rates by setting, state, and medical condition, and the average cost of these events. METHOD...

OBJECTIVE Hospital admissions for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (also called avoidable hospitalizations) are a measure of quality and access to outpatient care. We determined if young patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are at increased risk of avoidable hospitalizations. METHODS A national organ failure registry was used to identify patients with ESRD onset at <22 years of ag...