OBJECTIVE To examine the added value of measuring and possibly presenting patient experiences at the department level, in addition to the hospital level, and to explore the possibility that patient experiences differ according to the 'type' of hospital department. DESIGN Secondary analysis of data from a widely used survey on patient experiences of Dutch inpatient hospital care [Consumer Qual...

OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to identify pediatric hospitalists' perceived views of (1) barriers to delivering care to children with medical complexity (CMC) and (2) their preferred model of inpatient health care delivery for CMC. SUBJECTS American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Hospital Medicine (AAP-SOHM) Listserv subscribers. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional survey of su...

BACKGROUND Inpatient palliative care programs can improve care of patients with serious illness. We developed the California Hospital Initiative in Palliative Services (CHIPS) program to assist hospitals in establishing these programs. CHIPS included an introductory conference followed by 10 months of mentoring with telephone calls, e-mails, on-site consultation at the hospital, and a reunion c...

BACKGROUND Quantifying resource utilization in the inpatient care of congenital heart diease is clinically relevant. Our purpose is to measure the investment of inpatient care resources to achieve survival in hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), and to determine how much of that investment occurs in hospitalizations that have a fatal outcome, the mortality-related resource utilization fracti...

CONTEXT Many patients and their families have difficulty making decisions when confronted with complex medical problems. Often their expectations and hopes are beyond what medical science can deliver, and at times their desires seem to conflict with their treatment plans. Additionally, costly tests and treatments with little or no benefit are often explored. Inpatient palliative care consultati...

The design and operations of inpatient care facilities are typically largely historically shaped. A better match with the changing environment is often possible, and even inevitable due to the pressure on hospital budgets. Effectively organizing inpatient care requires simultaneous consideration of several interrelated planning issues. Also, coordination with upstream departments like the opera...

OBJECTIVE This study tested the hypothesis that reductions in acute public-sector psychiatric inpatient capacity in a major urban area would be associated with negative impacts on patients and the community. METHODS The impact of two discrete service changes that reduced acute inpatient capacity by 50% in a single public-sector general hospital setting was examined. Indicators of impact were ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the incidence and describe the profile of catastrophic expenditures and impoverishment due to household out-of-pocket payments, comparing the periods before and after the introduction of universal health care coverage (UC). METHODS Secondary data analyses of socioeconomic surveys on nationally representative households pre-UC in 2000 (n = 24,747) and post-UC in 2002 (n =...

Background:  Elbow surgery is shared by several subspecialties. We were curious about the most common elbow surgeries and their corresponding diagnoses in the United States.   Methods:  We used the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) and the National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS) data gathered in 2006-databases that together provide an estimate of all inpatient and ambulatory surgic...