OBJECTIVE To determine whether providing elderly alternate level of care (ALC) patients with interdisciplinary care on a transitional care unit (TCU) achieves better clinical outcomes and lowers costs compared with providing them with standard hospital care. DESIGN Before-and-after structured retrospective chart audit. SETTING St Joseph's Hospital in Comox, BC. PARTICIPANTS One hundred th...

BACKGROUND Hong Kong (HK) has pluralistic primary care that is provided by a variety of doctors. The aim of our study was to assess patient-reported outcomes of primary care consultations in HK and whether having a family doctor (FD) made any difference. METHODS We interviewed by telephone 3148 subjects from 5174 contacted households (response rate 60.8%) randomly selected from the general po...

BACKGROUND Dissatisfaction with the intensive care unit may threaten medical care. Clarifying treatment preferences can be useful in these settings, where physician direction may influence decision making and therefore medical treatment. This study aimed to evaluate whether fast-track discharge from intensive care units affects the satisfaction of family members. METHODS We used a single-cent...

BACKGROUND The growth of managed health care in the United States has been accompanied by controls on access to specialty physician services. We examined the relationship of physician specialty to treatment and outcomes of patients with asthma in managed care plans. METHODS We conducted a mail survey of adult asthma patients who were enrolled in 12 managed care organizations and had at least ...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that feedback from 360-degree surveys-combined with coaching-can improve physician team performance and quality of patient care. The Physicians Universal Leadership-Teamwork Skills Education (PULSE) 360 is one such survey tool that is used to assess work colleagues' and coworkers' perceptions of a physician's leadership, teamwork, and clinical practice style. The Cl...

BACKGROUND A woman's satisfaction with childbirth services can have a significant impact on her mental health and ability to bond with her neonate. Knowing postnatal women's opinions and satisfaction with services makes the services more women-friendly. Indian women's satisfaction with childbirth services has been explored qualitatively, or by using non-standard local questionnaires, but scient...