OBJECTIVE To identify the hospital admission data set that best captures the incidence of acute poisoning in rural Sri Lanka. METHODS Data were collected on all acute poisoning cases admitted to 34 primary and 1 referral hospital in Anuradhapura district from September 2008 to January 2010. Three admission data sets were compared with the "true" incidence of acute poisoning to determine the s...

AIMS To evaluate the applicability and the clinical impact of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines' recommendations for hospital admission of patients with syncope in a District Hospital Emergency Department (ED). METHODS AND RESULTS From September 2002 to August 2004, 1124 patients with syncope [out of 1308 with transient loss of consciousness (TLC)] were evaluated according t...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether admitting elderly patients to hospital to give temporary relief to their carers is associated with increased mortality. DESIGN Prospective multicentre study comparing the mortality of patients admitted on a one off or rotational basis with that experienced while they were awaiting admission. SETTING A wide range of urban and rural district general, geriatric o...

This study examined the mortality in the elderly during 243 respite hospital admissions. Sixty-four dependent elderly patients entered a regular respite care scheme and were admitted to hospital for a period of 4 weeks out of every 12 weeks. The mortality rate in hospital was one death per 976 days, in comparison to one death per 1296 days at home. This small increase in mortality should not de...

OBJECTIVE To study the potential of a short stay ward attached to an accident and emergency (A&E) department to improve care and reduce admissions to hospital by enabling elderly patients to be monitored closely for up to 24 h before being formally admitted to hospital or discharged home. Patients admitted to the short stay ward were those who appeared to need only a brief period of assessment ...

2005–2006, hospitals in Canada spent $1.8 billion on their emergency departments (EDs). In the same year, more than one million patients were admitted via EDs. (This rate excludes hospitalizations in Quebec and hospitalizations for woman admitted for childbirth and infants born in hospital.) Based on analyses included in the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) Understanding Emergen...