Hospital bed-blocking occurs when hospital patients are ready to be discharged to a nursing home, but no place is available, so that hospital care acts as a more costly substitute for long-term care. We investigate the extent to which greater supply of nursing home beds or lower prices can reduce hospital bed-blocking using a new Local Authority (LA) level administrative data from England on ho...

BACKGROUND Determining incidence rates of needlestick and sharps injuries (NSIs) using data from multiple hospitals may help hospitals to compare their in-house data with national averages and thereby institute relevant measures to minimize NSIs. We aimed to determine the incidence rate of NSIs using the nationwide EPINet surveillance system. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Data were analyzed ...

While planning a new maternity teaching hospital, we encountered the problem of relating number of delivery rooms to expected case load. The flow of patients in the teaching and research sections of the hospital could be predicted on the basis of previous experience, but for an attached "sector unit" the problem was much more difficult. The unit was intended to serve a new function, and therefo...

Results Of 32 ICU's, 19 completed the survey (59%), one was excluded as the hospital did not receive emergency admissions. The hospitals had a mean of 374 beds and the ICU's had a mean of 9.4 beds. Three hospitals had an invasive cardiology department. Seventeen departments (94%) had introduced TH; the first department introduced it in 2002. The number of patients treated with TH ranged between...

A major factor contributing to the high number of cancelled operations in hospitals is the unavailability of beds on hospital wards for post-operative recovery. In this research, we model the effects of the operating theatre timetable on the demand for beds and show that a timetable can be produced that leads to a reduced number of cancelled operations whilst also levelling the demand for beds ...

background: understanding customers has become an urgent topic for increasing competitiveness. the purpopse of  the study was to develop a qualitative dynamic attribute value model which provides insight into the customers' value for healthcare institute managers by conducting the initial open-ended questionnaire survey to select participants purposefully. methods: a total number of 427 questio...

Best Buy Hospital These considerations underlay the Best Buy Hospital, which was introduced on the basis of an acute inpatient provision of two beds per 1,000. It was assumed that patients would stay a minimum of time necessary in hospital and that there would be full supporting services in the community. Almost independent of the community services, the South East Thames Regional Health Author...