BACKGROUND Few studies report on the effect of organizational factors facilitating transfer between primary and tertiary care hospitals either within an integrated health care system or outside it. In this paper, we report on the relationship between degree of clinical integration of cardiology services and transfer rates of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients from primary to tertiary hospit...

The objective of this study was to estimate household costs (direct medical, direct non-medical and opportunity costs) associated with outpatient consultations and inpatient admissions at three tertiary hospitals in Lao PDR (national, university and regional hospitals). Revolving drug funds are the main sources of revenue for the facilities. We used outpatient exit interviews and interviews wit...

IMPORTANCE Changes in health care reimbursement policy have led to an era in which hospitals are motivated to improve quality of care while simultaneously reducing costs. Research demonstrating the most efficient means to target costs may have a positive effect on patient quality of life and the overburdened health care system. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of hospital length of stay (LOS)...

nurses play a functional role in preventing drug related problems. they need to be aware of the dangers of polypharmacy while reviewing patient medications. we studied the nurses' opinion on the diverse effects of polypharmacy in the hospital setting. nurses working in a tertiary care teaching hospital participated in this cross-sectional study, conducted over 3 months, by responding to a self-...