The practice and methodology of hospital epidemiology in infection control have begun to mature. At the same time, there is need for an institutionally based clinical epidemiologist to assist in several other mandatory patient care-related programs in the hospital. Hospital epidemiology programs should recognize this need, the parallels in other programs, and the unique opportunity to bring to ...

BACKGROUND While routine clinical decision-making has a substantial effect on quality, most practising physicians do not routinely examine their outcomes. OBJECTIVES To set up a practical process for identifying problems in hospital practices of primary care physicians, examine their causes, and develop a quality improvement process that intimately involves practising physicians in problem-so...

Over the last decade hospitals concessions have been increasingly implemented around the world. Nonetheless, concession arrangements are subject to many criticisms, which are to a large extent related to the issue of flexibility. Several authors have expressed concerns as to whether concession arrangements are able to provide the flexibility these need in order to secure optimal qualitative hos...

BACKGROUND Some emergency admissions can be avoided if acute exacerbations of health problems are managed by the range of health services providing emergency and urgent care. AIM To identify system-wide factors explaining variation in age sex adjusted admission rates for conditions rich in avoidable admissions. DESIGN National ecological study. SETTING 152 emergency and urgent care system...

practice appointment rates could have a significant impact on national health care costs and services offered by doctors. in this respect a study was designed to determine the relationship between practice appointments and possible predictors in high-risk asthmatics. an observational retrospective analysis of the predictors for the practice appointments in asthmatic patients with at least one h...

BACKGROUND Earlier studies have successfully demonstrated that medical students can achieve success in core clinical rotations with long term attachments in small groups to rural general / family practices. METHODS In this study, three students from a class of 226 volunteered for this 1-year pilot program, conducted by the University of Queensland in 2004, for medical students in the 3rd year...