Objectives Variation in patterns of referral from primary care can lead to inappropriate overuse or underuse of specialist resources. Our aim was to review the literature on strategies involving primary care that are designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of outpatient services. Methods A scoping review to update a review published in 2006. We conducted a systematic literature sea...

OBJECTIVE Determining Costa Ricans' behaviour patterns when using health services. METHODS The Costa Rican Health Survey was used. Central tendency, dispersion, percentages, frequencies, Ji-Square and Kruskal-Walis test measurements were analysed. RESULTS Area of residence and income level were the predisposing factors in both out-patient and emergency services whereas educational level was...

BACKGROUND Day-hospital-based treatment programmes have been recommended for poorly functioning patients with personality disorders (PD). However, more research is needed to confirm the cost-effectiveness of such extensive programmes over other, presumably simpler, treatment formats. METHODS This study compared health service costs and psychosocial functioning for PD patients randomly allocat...

background this paper aims to investigate the development trend of traditional chinese medicine (tcm) hospitals in china and explore their medical service innovations, with special reference to the changing co-existence with western medicine (wm) at tcm hospitals.   methods quantitative data at macro level was collected from official databases of china health statistical yearbook and extracts o...

There is insufficient empirical evidence on the correlates of health care utilization of irregular migrants currently living in Turkey. The aim of this study was to identify individual level determinants associated with health service and medication use. One hundred and fifty-five Afghans completed surveys assessing service utilization including encounters with primary care physicians and outpa...

OBJECTIVES To measure the number of all transient ischaemic attack (TIAs) and minor strokes managed as outpatients, and hence, the need for 'TIA clinics' in comparison to current estimates of 20,000 TIAs annually in England, based on previous rates of incident-definite events. SUBJECTS All individuals with confirmed or suspected TIA or stroke between 2002 and 2005 in a population-based study ...

PURPOSE Our purpose in the current study was to examine the relationship between health services utilization delivered by means of the Homeless Outreach Medical Services (HOMES) program and health services utilization delivered by means of the Parkland emergency room and inpatient units among a sample of older and younger homeless adults being served by the Parkland Health and Hospital System. ...

AIM The purpose of this research is to investigate the patient's satisfaction (patient's satisfaction) with medical services provided in Outpatients' Departments of a Greek Anti-Cancer Hospital in morning and afternoon clinics. The assessment of patients and identification of factors that contribute to their satisfaction will highlight the organizational and operational problems of outpatient d...

BACKGROUND Older veterans may use both the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and Medicare, but the association of dual use with health outcomes is unclear. We examined the association of indirect measures of dual use with mortality. METHODS Our secondary analysis used survey, claims, and National Death Index data from the Survey on Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old. The analy...