Prolonged hospital stay not only increases financial stress on the National Health Service but also exposes patients to an unnecessarily high risk of adverse ward events. Each day accumulates approximately £225 in bed costs with additional risks of venousthromboembolism, hospital acquired infections, prescription errors, and falls. Despite being medically fit for discharge (MFFD), patients awai...

OBJECTIVES To monitor the success of an inpatient palliative care unit combining private and state patients, and accessible to patients with cancer and AIDS. DESIGN An observational study was conducted of patients admitted to the unit in the first 3 months following opening of the ward (1 March - 31 May 2006). METHODS Data were collected on all patients admitted to the ward to establish pat...

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 p...

Regular consultant ward rounds have been shown to reduce the length of stay and improve the discharge planning for patients (1). To balance the competing demands of outpatient activity and inpatient oncology, it has been difficult to provide specialist care in our hospital. Previously, inpatients were managed primarily by the oncology specialist trainees, who are qualified in internal medicine,...

BACKGROUND Length of stay is the main determinant of the cost of hospitalization, which is why strategies must be implemented to reduce conventional hospital stays while maintaining quality levels. Short Stay Units (SSU) were created with the aim of reducing hospital stays in a certain group of patients and pathologies. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the literature on the evidence of decr...

Objective: Using the Ley prosthesis, a 0.5 mm thick titanium alloy plate for stabilising the sternum, is a new method in the treatment of mediastinitis after open-heart surgery. We report a retrospective analysis of our experience with this device. Methods: One hundred consecutive cases of post-operative mediastinitis in the period 1992±1997 were reviewed. The primary procedure at reoperation f...

Purpose: To identify the prevalence of potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) in a psychiatric ward, their levels and association with risk factors. Methods: This study was conducted in the psychiatric ward of Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad, Pakistan. Medical records of 415 patients were retrospectively reviewed for pDDIs using Micromedex Drug-Reax software. Logistic regression was applie...

INTRODUCTION There have been several studies focusing on caloric intake during the last years, while protein content relevance has been underestimated. Some recent evidence has shown that protein deficiency has also an impact on patient outcomes. We have studied the nitrogen (N) content in parenteral nutrition (PN) bags administered to adult patients in a Spanish tertiary level hospital for fou...