BACKGROUND Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) are ischemic emergencies. Guidelines recommend care delivery within formally regionalized systems of care at designated centers, with bypass of nearby centers of lesser or no designation. We review the evidence of the effectiveness of regionalized systems in AIS and STEMI. METHODS Literature was sear...

The aim of this study was to access evolution in care of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants after the implementation of a regionalization policy in Portugal. The data of the National Portuguese Network of VLBW infants are analyzed concerning mortality, morbidity, and quality of regionalization. A total of 12,826 VLBW infants born from 1 January 1994 to 31 December 2008 were enrolled, with a p...

Regionalization frameworks cluster geographic data to create contiguous regions of similar climate, geology and hydrology by delineating land into discrete regions, such as ecoregions or watersheds, often at several spatial scales. Although most regionalization schemes were not originally designed for aquatic ecosystem classification or management, they are often used for such purposes, with su...

To prevent potentially unsuitable activities during vegetation restoration, it is important to examine the impact of historical restoration activities on the target ecological system to inform future restoration policies. Taking the Loess Plateau of China as an example, a regionalization method and corresponding scheme were proposed to select suitable vegetation types (forested lands, woody gra...

The requirements of a rapidly changing, competitive marketplace have amplified an existing demand for improved clinical information within the healthcare organization, and focused increasing attention on the expansion of ambulatory care services, especially primary care. At the Queens Health Network (QHN), the consolidation of operations and regionalization of services compels the sharing of pa...

Since its birth in the 1950s and 1960s, the history of neonatal intensive care has been remarkable. It has grown from a new field with limited resources and limited capabilities into a comprehensive, technologically advanced discipline able to address a wide range of newborn illnesses, and this growth has contributed to a rapid decline in neonatal mortality. Throughout this period, medical prov...

Regional integration remains among the main topics of international discourse in Central Asia, though the progress of international cooperation is very limited. Our aim is to understand the connection between the organization of economic institutions in Central Asia and the regional integration. The existing literature has explored the state level of integration in great detail: varying from ra...