To provide health services to its population of 1.2 billion, China has 200 000 health establishments including 62 000 public hospitals (Ministry of Health 1996). China has some 3 million hospital beds in operation, averaging 2.4 beds per thousand people. This is a higher per capita ratio than is found in other low-income regions of the world. Three-quarters of China’s total health spending goes...

BACKGROUND Before deciding increases in the number or capacitance of Intensive Care Units (ICUs), or the regionalization of Units, it is essential to know their present effectiveness. OBJECTIVE To analyze the daily occupancy rate of ICUs in Catalonia (Spain) and the frequency of denied admission due to lack of capacity. DESIGN A prospective, observational multicenter study was carried out. ...

Active involvement of anesthesiologists in perioperative management is important to ensure the patients' safety. This study aimed to investigate the state of anesthetic services in Korea by identifying anesthetic service providers. From the insurance claims data of National Health Insurance for 3 yr, the Korean state of anesthetic services was analyzed. The claims for anesthesia from the medica...

Background: One of the important aspects of equity in health is equality in the distribution of resources in this sector. The present study aimed to assess the distribution of hospital beds in Shiraz in 2014.   Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, the population density index and fair distribution of beds were analyzed by Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient, respectively....

ORGANIZATION OF CARE: Health care is provided to patients with mental disorders by the state health care facilities as well as by social help agencies. Mental health care services are provided mostly by mental health facilities and partly by primary care units. Outpatient clinics, separate for psychiatric patients and substance abusers, are the most numerous mental health care units, amounting ...

BACKGROUND To investigate the differences in the characteristics of femoral neck and trochanteric fractures between urban and rural areas of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. METHODS Fracture type (neck vs. trochanteric), age, sex, place where fracture occurred (indoors vs. outdoors), and cause of injury were surveyed among patients aged ≥65 years who sustained hip fractures between 2008 and 2010 an...

background: the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the inequality of geographical distribution of non-cardiac intensive care beds in iran using the gini coefficient. methods: the population information of iran's provinces in 2006 was obtained from the statistical center of iran and the number of non-cardiac intensive care beds (including icu, posticu and nicu beds) in all provinces wa...

Context and aim: The Danish hospital sector is facing a significant rebuilding programme, driven by a political desire to concentrate activity in fewer and larger hospitals. Our aim is to analyse whether the current configuration of Danish hospitals is subject to scale economies that may justify such plans and to estimate an optimal hospital size. Methods: We estimate cost functions using panel...