BACKGROUND The Pilot Project on Per-diem Payment for Inpatient Hospice Services of Taiwan's National Health Insurance Program was begun in July 2000. The project monitors hospices to control for a median length of stay (LOS) of not longer than 16 days to prevent inappropriate stasis in hospices. To determine the best utilization of palliative care, patients remaining in the hospice for more tha...

Review of a consecutive series of the elderly patients who presented unheralded to the Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Gwent Hospital showed that a relative minority (11%) were difficult to manage because they had no obvious acute medical condition or injury which qualified them for admission by the firms to whom they were first referred. The difficulty was compounded by the shor...

BACKGROUND Wide variation in the outcomes of colorectal surgery persists, despite a well-established evidence-base to inform clinical practice. This variation may be attributed to differences in quality of care, but we do not know what this means in practical terms of care delivery. This telephone interview study aimed to identify distinguishing characteristics in the organisation of care among...

[Purpose] We examined the effects of having Point Care (POC) rehabilitation staff permanently assigned to community-based comprehensive care wards on patient activities daily living (ADL) and average length hospital stay. [Participants Methods] One hundred fourteen patients eligible for disease-specific were divided into two groups before after assignment, Functional Independence Measure (FIM) ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the predictors of total medical costs for first-ever ischaemic stroke patients transferred to the rehabilitation ward from the acute ward. PATIENTS A total of 311 first-ever ischaemic stroke patients (mean age 68.9 (standard deviation (SD) 12.2) years). METHODS Data, including common complications and medical events, from July 2002 to June 2012 were collected retros...

Background: Optimising quality of life (QOL) for service users in a forensic hospital is an important treatment objective. The factors which contribute to QOL in this setting are currently unclear. The aim of this study was to analyse the predictors of QOL amongst service users within an inpatient forensic mental health hospital. Methods: This study is a naturalistic, cross-sectional, observati...

One hundred patients undergoing major surgical operations in a provincial group hospital were studied bacteriologically daily to determine any relation between nasal carriage of staphylococci and post-operative staphylococcal wound sepsis.Sixty-four patients were either carriers on admission and throughout their stay, or their noses became colonized at some time by ward strains. Six cases of st...

Introduction Mortality in the ward after an intensive care unit (ICU) stay is considered a quality parameter, and is described as a source of avoidable mortality. Additionally, the attending intensivist frequently anticipates fatal outcome after ICU discharge. Our objective was to test the ability of a new score to stratify patients according to ward mortality after ICU discharge. Methods A pro...

BACKGROUND Infections in critical care unit are high, and they are serious hospital problems. Infections acquired during the hospital stay are generally called nosocomial infections, initially known as infections arising after 48 h of hospital admission. The mostfrequent nosocomial infections (urinary, respiratory, gastroenteritis and blood stream infection) were common in patients at hospital....