BACKGROUND This study analyzed the likelihood of less-urgent emergency department (ED) visits among type 2 diabetic patients receiving care under a diabetes disease management (DM) program offered by the Louisiana State University Health Care Services Division (LSU HCSD). METHODS All ED and outpatient clinic visits made by 6,412 type 2 diabetic patients from 1999 to 2006 were extracted from t...

BACKGROUND The UK urgent cancer referral guidance was introduced between 1999-2000. There is a dearth of literature relating to the effectiveness in detecting cancer of urgent suspected cancer referrals and general practitioners' compliance with the guidance. AIMS This paper aims to determine the diagnostic yield from urgent referrals for suspected colorectal, lung, ovarian and prostate cance...

One of the most important issues of urgent computing is the appropriate management of resources and tasks to meet the requirements of this concept. This article presents a model-based approach to a deadline-driven resource control taking into account the main requirements of urgent computing. The structure of stochastic multi-componential performance model for estimation and optimization of the...

OBJECTIVES To introduce an effective and safe ophthalmic triaging system to be used by non-ophthalmologists.   METHODS A modified scoring triage system with more relevant clinical symptoms and signs from a previously published Rome Eye Scoring System for Urgency and Emergency (RESCUE) was evaluated over a 2-month period. The study was conducted following a prospective cohort design between Ma...

BACKGROUND Outcomes and resource utilization of patients undergoing mitral valve replacement (MVR) with or without concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) were reviewed. METHODS Data for 1,844 patients undergoing isolated primary MVR at Emory University Hospitals between 1980 and 1997 were recorded prospectively in a computerized database. RESULTS The four groups included patient...

Syncope is among the most frequent forms of transient loss of consciousness (TLOC), and is characterized by a relatively brief and self-limited loss of consciousness that by definition is triggered by transient cerebral hypoperfusion. Most often, syncope is caused by a temporary drop of systemic arterial pressure below that required to maintain cerebral function, but brief enough not to cause p...

Acute infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is often accompanied by a flu-like illness, and early identification and treatment may help control the infection and prevent transmission. We enrolled patients who presented to an urban urgent care center with any symptoms of a viral illness and any recent potential risk for HIV infection, and we tested them for acute HIV infection using ...

We studied the association between OTC pharmaceutical sales and volume of patients with influenza-like-illnesses (ILI) at an urgent care center over one year. OTC pharmaceutical sales explain 36% of the variance in the patient volume, and each standard deviation increase is associated with 4.7 more patient visits to the urgent care center (p<0.0001). Cross-correlation function analysis demonstr...