background: preterm infants need to be hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (nicu) and receive specific systematic care in order to survive. nonetheless, long hospital stay leads to parents’ separation from the infant and disturbance in the family life. it also has many undesirable effects on the infant. the present study aimed to determine the effect of family-centered empowerment ...

BACKGROUND Hospital palliative care programs provide high-quality, comprehensive care for seriously ill patients and their families. OBJECTIVE To examine geographic variation in patient and medical trainee access to hospital palliative care and to examine predictors of these programs. METHODS Primary and secondary analyses of national survey and census data. Hospital data including hospital...

OBJECTIVES To compare hospital at home care with inpatient hospital care in terms of patient outcomes. DESIGN Randomised controlled trial with three month follow up. SETTING District general hospital and catchment area of neighbouring community trust. SUBJECTS Patients recovering from hip replacement (n=86), knee replacement (n=86), and hysterectomy (n=238); elderly medical patients (n=96...

BACKGROUND To examine the appropriateness of admissions and in-patient stay for patients with long term neurological conditions (LTNCs). To identify variables predictive of appropriateness and explore management alternatives. METHODS Adults admitted as acute patients to Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (England). Data were collected prospectively and examined by a multi-disciplinary exper...

OBJECTIVE To describe patient experiences with hospital inpatient care among participants living in rural China and to examine their associations with sociodemographic characteristics, hospital type and province. DESIGN Cross-sectional study using data from questionnaires administered to members of randomly selected households in 2010. We used linear and logistic regression to determine assoc...

As the use of intravenous devices (IVD) has risen so have the number of serious complications, mainly infectious, associated with its use. In fact, IVD are currently the most important independent cause of nosocomial infection in the health care sector [1,2]. Catheter-related infections (CRI) are the leading cause of primary septicemia with a high prevalence leading to increased hospital stays ...

There is increasing demand for nurses to work in primary care. This is driven in part by the need to retain current levels but also by the modernisation plans for primary care services, which require new roles for nurses, new ways of working and more nurses in primary care settings. While campaigns for increased recruitment of hospital nurses and doctors has been largely successful in recent ye...

Background: Length of hospital stay (LHS) is the most important and practical indicator in hospitals, which largely reflects the level of hospital performance and activity. It is also an important indicator for resource planning. Moreover, the quality of care can theoretically be related to LHS. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between LHS and quality of nursing care in...

We would like to draw your readers’ attention to a small study investigating the use of a telephone triage system to improve after-hours access to healthcare services. We conducted the trial in Kerang District Hospital (KDH), located in the rural Loddon Mallee region of Northern Victoria, Australia. KDH serves 10 000 people in several districts with six GPs (ratio of 0.6/10,000 people vs Melbou...