OBJECTIVES This report describes ambulatory care visits to hospital emergency departments in the United States. Statistics are presented on selected patient and visit characteristics. METHODS The data presented in this report were collected from the 1997 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). NHAMCS is part of the ambulatory care component of the National Health Care Surve...

BACKGROUND The burden of pneumococcal disease in adults aged 65 years and older in Australia is not well defined. This retrospective cross-sectional study calculated rates for pneumococcal pneumonia using data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and from the Bettering Evaluation and Care of Health program. METHODS Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) incidence was calculated us...

PURPOSE To measure the rate of progression of retinal degeneration in patients with retinitis pigmentosa due to dominant rhodopsin mutations and to determine whether the rate of progression correlates with the location of the altered amino acid in the rhodopsin molecule. METHODS Change in ocular function was observed for an average of 8.7 years in 140 patients. After censoring data to elimina...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of wounds managed by the UK's National Health Service (NHS) in 2012/2013 and the annual levels of healthcare resource use attributable to their management and corresponding costs. METHODS This was a retrospective cohort analysis of the records of patients in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) Database. Records of 1000 adult patients who had a wound in 2...

OBJECTIVES To describe the impact of regular visits to a nursing home by a gerontologist physician assistant (PA) on the hospitalization and medical costs of patients. DESIGN A 6-year case series (1992-1997) incorporating events before and after introduction of a PA in May 1994. The PA visited the nursing home 3 to 4 times per week, provided nearly all of the acute medical care, and alternate...

OBJECTIVE To describe hospital admission and emergency visit rates and potential risk factors of prolonged hospitalisation and death among children in Hanoi. STUDY DESIGN A retrospective study reviewed 212 216 hospitalisation records of children (aged 0-17) who attended the Vietnam National Children's Hospital in Hanoi between 2007 and 2014. Four indicators were analysed and reported: (1) rat...

INTRODUCTION To describe the epidemiology and characteristics of emergency department (ED) visits by older adults for motor vehicle collisions (MVC) in the United States (U.S.). METHODS We analyzed ED visits for MVCs using data from the 2003-2007 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS). Using U.S. Census data, we calculated annual incidence rates of driver or passenger MVC-r...

OBJECTIVE To estimate annual per-patient health services utilization and costs of retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in the United States. METHODS A retrospective claims analysis of patients with RP (N = 2990) and a 1:1 exactly matched cohort of non-RP patients was conducted using the MarketScan Commercial and Medicare Supplemental Databases. Individuals were continuously enrolled in a commercial heal...

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to estimate the health care resources spent by type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients in Spain during the year 2002. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This is a cost-of-illness study focusing on direct health care costs estimated from primary and secondary sources of information. A prevalence of diabetes ranging from 5 to 6% of the adult population was determined. ...

INTRODUCTION People with diabetes are at increased risk of periodontal disease and tooth loss. Healthy People 2010 set a goal that 71% or more of people with diabetes should have an annual dental exam. METHODS We assessed dental insurance and annual dental visits among dentate respondents from the Diabetes Study of Northern California (DISTANCE) Survey cohort (N = 20,188), an ethnically strat...