introduction: advantages of endodontic treatments over tooth extraction have increased the demands for these treatments. success rate of these treatments is generally lower than the primary root canal therapies. recently, single visit treatments have gained more popularity. but, the influence of completing retreatment in a single appointment on success of the treatment is still a controversy. t...

OBJECTIVES To determine the impact on breastfeeding sustained beyond two months of the "Seventeen Steps" breastfeeding maintenance program consisting of seventeen strategies used to promote, support and protect breastfeeding and implemented for ten months at a medical center. METHODS Nonrandomized clinical trial, involving 147 children born between 01/01/99 and 31/12/2001, who had attended th...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The implementation of advanced access appointment systems has improved continuity of care, patient and physician satisfaction, physician productivity, and average physician panel size in private practice and group-model HMO settings. This study's purpose was to document the patient care benefits, practice management benefits, and educational outcomes from the controlle...

BACKGROUND Choose and Book is a central part of the UK Government patient choice agenda that seeks to provide patients with a choice over the time, date and place of their first outpatient appointment. This is done through the use of a computerised booking system. After a 2004 pilot study, Choose and Book was formally launched in January 2006. This is the first study of patient experience of Ch...

OBJECTIVES A well-developed appointment system can help increase the utilization of medical facilities in an outpatient department. This paper outlines the development of an appointment system that can make an outpatient department work more efficiently and improve patient satisfaction level. METHODS A Markov decision process model is proposed to schedule sequential appointments with the cons...