The delivery of cost-effective and quality hospital-based health care remains an important and ongoing challenge for the American health care industry. Despite numerous advances in medical procedures and technologies, a growing array of outpatient health care options, limits on inpatient reimbursements, and almost two decades of hospital contraction and consolidation, annual inpatient admission...

Trends in health status and healthcare utilization were examined for regions of Manitoba from 1985 to 2000. While the provincial premature mortality rate decreased, the difference between the northern and southern regions increased. Hospital admissions remained stable despite major bed closures and an aging population; a decrease in hospital days per capita was observed in all regions. Physicia...

BACKGROUND Few studies analyzed the pattern of opioid analgesic utilization in hospital settings. The aim of this study was to determine the consumption pattern of parenteral morphine in patients hospitalized in the Serbian referral teaching hospital and to correlate it with utilization at the national and international level. METHODS In retrospective study, the required data were extracted f...

BACKGROUND Improvement of appropriate bed use and access to intensive care (ICU) beds is essential in optimizing utilization of ICU capacity. The introduction of an intermediate care unit (IMC) integrated in the ICU care may improve this utilization. METHOD In a before-after prospective intervention study in a university hospital mixed ICU, the impact of introducing a six-bed mixed IMC unit s...

Purpose There is limited information available about factors that influence interest, beliefs and utilization of CAIM (Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative Medicine) in a pediatric population. Thus, the current study examined these factors through questionnaires to both (1) caregivers of pediatric patients and (2) pediatric healthcare providers. This two-part study was conducted at CHOC ...

Objective: The goal of study is to identify drug and antimicrobial utilization in ICUs by using daily defined dose. Material and Methods: Study was conducted at tertiary care teaching hospital. 100 patients in each medical, surgical and neurosurgical ICU were included. The data were recorded in preformed Case Record Form (CRF). Drugs were classified using the anatomical therapeutic chemical (AT...

Recent studies have documented that a significant increase in the use of observation stays along with extensive variation in patterns of use across hospitals.The objective of this longitudinal observational study was to examine the extent to which patient, hospital, and local health system characteristics explain variation in observation stay rates across Veterans Health Administration (VHA) ho...

BACKGROUND The aim of present study was to determine the impact of two different ICU management model, open and semi closed, on resources utilization in intensive care unit. METHOD Retrospective cohort analysis using data from hospital database was applied to compare the effect of ICU management model on ICU length of stay and bed disposition of 1064 patients admitted to the general ICU of Im...

BACKGROUND Electrophysiological studies of the heart became commonplace in the past decade. Like cardiac catheterizations, electrophysiological studies are often considered "same day" procedures; patients are admitted in the morning, undergo the procedure, recover for several hours while confined to bed, and then are discharged from the hospital. The requisite time in bed varies widely between ...