AIMS The aim of this study was to ascertain the average height of occupied patient beds in a general medical ward and to investigate the relationship between staff working-height for patient beds, time and whether the patient was on fall precaution. BACKGROUND The height of occupied patient beds can be an overlooked contributor to inpatient falls. Better physical design of hospital equipment ...

Objective To establish whether reinstitutionalisation is occurring in mental health care and, if so, with what variations between western European countries. Design Comparison of data on changes in service provision. Setting Six European countries with different traditions of mental health care that have all experienced deinstitutionalisation since the 1970s—England, Germany, Italy, the Netherl...

BACKGROUND Emergency department access block is a growing problem in emergency departments across Canada. Access block is defined as hospital occupancy >85% causing emergency department overcrowding. Hospital overcrowding leads to prolonged emergency department wait times, and delays in the transfer of admitted patients from the emergency department to inpatient beds. The relationship between e...

A mental hospital responsible for psychiatric illness occurring in a population of 500,000 may have 2,000 inpatients (four beds for 1,000 of the population at risk). There will be a further 8,000 people needing regular psychiatric treatment. It is neither necessary nor desirable that everyone of the 10,000 patients should be in hospital. Not necessary because many people with psychiatric illnes...

We investigated the incidence of cases of nosocomial pathogens and risk factors in an intensive treatment unit ward to determine if the number of cases is dependent on location of patients and the colonization/infection history of the ward. A clustering approach method was developed to investigate the patterns of spread of cases through time for five microorganisms [methicillin-resistant Staphy...