Making referrals to other hospital specialties is one of the key duties of the foundation doctor, which can be difficult and time consuming. In Ninewells hospital, Scotland, in our experience the effectiveness of referrals is limited by contact details not being readily accessible and foundation doctors not knowing what information is relevant to each specialty. We surveyed foundation doctors o...

Background

Specialty hospitals, particularly those specializing in surgery and owned by physicians, have generated a relatively high degree of policy attention over the past several years. The main focus of policy debates has been in two areas: the extent to which specialty hospitals might compete unfairly with incumbent general hospitals and the extent to which physician ownership might be associated wit...

AIMS To test the clinical accuracy of a web based differential diagnostic tool (ISABEL) for a set of case histories collected during a two stage evaluation. METHODS SETTING acute paediatric units in two teaching and two district general hospitals in the southeast of England. MATERIALS sets of summary clinical features from both stages, and the diagnoses expected for these features from s...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of Schwartz Center Rounds, a multi-disciplinary forum to reflect on the emotional consequences of working in healthcare, on the staff of a large acute general hospital over a three-year period. DESIGN Evaluation data following each Round were collected routinely from all staff attending over this period and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. SETTING ...

This study assesses whether California's minimum nurse staffing legislation affected the amount of uncompensated care provided by California hospitals. Using data from California's Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and InterStudy, the authors divide hospitals into quartiles based on preregulation staffing levels. Controlling for...

We describe the steps, problems, pitfalls and modifications in the development of a collaborative medical modelling service for a general hospital in the United Kingdom. We emphasise the value of having as much control as possible in the hands of clinicians so that the maximum relevant information can be obtained at minimum cost. Three-dimensional imaging, modelling and planning are now essenti...