OBJECTIVE To test the ability of an assessment-driven algorithm for treatment of pediatric status asthmaticus to reduce length and cost of hospitalization. DESIGN Nonrandomized, prospective, controlled trial. SETTING Tertiary care children's hospital. PATIENTS Children aged 1 to 18 years hospitalized for status asthmaticus; 104 were treated using the asthma care algorithm (intervention) a...

Background and Objectives: Evidence shows that transfer of hospital governance to board of trustees can positively influence hospital performance. Iran has initiated implementing such a transformation and a number of hospitals have been involved in this reform. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of such a reform by examining performance profile of a sample hospital across the interve...

Follow-up is a vital part of ongoing patient safety. It allows for subsequent investigations to be checked and acted upon, encourages specialist review of patients and ensures that patients with chronic conditions receive the appropriate secondary care input. This study aims to highlight and quantify current problems with how follow-up arrangements are made within our hospital and provide a sui...

Forecasting In-Patient length of stay is a prime concern for patients in diagnosis of their diseases. It is also significant for hospitals to plan and manage their services for patients efficiently. Length of In-Patient stay prediction plays a crucial role in strategic decision making by healthcare administrators and also plan their resources. This paper presents a review of related algorithms ...

In medical practice, treatments are selected based on the expected causal effects patient outcomes. Here, gold standard for estimating randomized controlled trials; however, such trials costly and sometimes even unethical. Instead, practice is increasingly interested in among (sub)groups from electronic health records, that is, observational data. this paper, we aim at average effect (ACE) data...

A da Vinci Robotic Surgical System was purchased for The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano in fall 2011 and a program for robotic-assisted thoracic surgery commenced at the facility. Successive thoracic patients were offered and accepted a robotic-assisted operation. No patient was excluded because of age, height, weight, or comorbidities. The first 20 patients are summarized herein. Of the first 10 ...

BACKGROUND Oral or enteral dietary supplementation with arginine, omega 3 fatty acids and nucleotides (known as immunonutrition) significantly improve outcomes in patients undergoing elective surgery. The objective of the study was to determine the impact on hospital costs of immunonutrition formulas used in patients undergoing elective surgery for gastrointestinal cancer. METHODS US hospital...