OBJECTIVE To determine the impact of using the CLINITEK AUWi System to screen out negative urine samples intended for culture on patient length of stay and culture results at a community teaching hospital. DESIGN AND METHODS We used a retrospective cohort design to compare length of stay for patients admitted before and after implementation of the CLINITEK AUWi System to screen urine samples ...

BACKGROUND Decreasing hospital length of stay, and so freeing up hospital beds, represents an important cost saving which is often used in economic evaluations. The savings need to be accurately quantified in order to make optimal health care resource allocation decisions. Traditionally the accounting cost of a bed is used. We argue instead that the economic cost of a bed day is the better valu...

Home testing for chlamydia and gonorrhea increases screening rates, but the cost consequences of this intervention are unclear. We examined the cost differences between home-based and clinic-based testing and the cost-effectiveness of home testing based on the DAISY study, a randomized controlled trial. Direct and indirect costs were estimated for home and clinic testing, and cost-effectiveness...

BACKGROUND While the benefits of evidence-based counseling to large numbers of women and physicians are intuitively evident, there is an urgent need to document that teratology counseling, in addition to improving the quality of life of women and families, also leads to cost saving. The objective of the present study was to calculate the cost effectiveness of the Motherisk Program, a large tera...

BACKGROUND The need to make best use of limited resources in the English National Health Service is now greater than ever. This paper contributes to this endeavour by synthesizing data from cost-effectiveness evidence produced to support the development of public health guidance at the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). No comprehensive list of cost-effectiveness estim...

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a great role in the development of any country. ICT has affected various fields and changed the working style of various Government and Non-Government organizations. It has helped in reducing the time for the users to accomplish a particular job. ICT has drastically reduced the cost of services that is to be incurred by the users. After looking...

Cleaning and disinfection practices of environmental surfaces are critical interventions for reducing health care-associated infections. We studied the value of ready-to-use cleaning and disinfection wipes compared with the traditional towel and bucket method. When using ready-to-use wipes, we found compliance to be significantly higher, a more rapid cleaning and disinfection process, and poten...

There is an increasing demand for acute care services due in part to rising proportions of older people and increasing rates of chronic diseases. To reduce pressure and costs in the hospital system, community-based post-acute care discharge services for older people have evolved as one method of reducing length of stay in hospital and preventing readmissions. However, it is unclear whether they...

BACKGROUND In countries with scarce specialized Human resource for health, patients are usually referred. The other alternative has been mobilizing specialists, clinical specialist outreach. This study examines whether clinical specialist outreach is a cost effective way of using scarce health expertise to provide specialist care as compared to provision of such services through referral system...

AIMS The first aim of this study was to develop a model that predicts health and economic consequences of smoking cessation in Sweden, striving to follow the methodological recommendations to reflect the societal perspective and to use the health measure quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). The second aim was to apply the model estimates to a smoking cessation intervention. METHODS A Markov c...