Bmc Health Serv Res
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2014
Drug shortages in European countries: a trade-off between market attractiveness and cost containment?
Drug shortages are a global problem. While extensively studied in the United States, numbers about drug shortages in European countries are scarce. This study aims to collect and present data about drug shortages in European countries. ⋯ Reporting of drug shortages in Europe needs to be standardized and more transparency about the reasons for drug shortage is required to investigate the problem. A link between production problems and market attractiveness and market capacity is recognized to be at the root of drug shortages in U.S. Such insights are highly lacking in Europe. Monitoring of the effect of national and European health policies on the sustainability of the drug market is required to present fundamental solutions and to tackle the problem of drug shortages in Europe.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2014
Association between hospital case volume and mortality in non-elderly pneumonia patients stratified by severity: a retrospective cohort study.
The characteristics and aetiology of pneumonia in the non-elderly population is distinct from that in the elderly population. While a few studies have reported an inverse association between hospital case volume and clinical outcome in elderly pneumonia patients, the evidence is lacking in a younger population. In addition, the relationship between volume and outcome may be different in severe pneumonia cases than in mild cases. In this context, we tested two hypotheses: 1) non-elderly pneumonia patients treated at hospitals with larger case volume have better clinical outcome compared with those treated at lower case volume hospitals; 2) the volume-outcome relationship differs by the severity of the pneumonia. ⋯ Hospital case volume was inversely associated with in-hospital mortality in non-elderly pneumonia patients with intermediate pneumonia severity. Our result suggests room for potential improvement in the quality of care in hospitals with lower volume, to improve treatment outcomes particularly in patients admitted with intermediate pneumonia severity.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2014
Providing emergency care and assessing a patient triage system in a referral hospital in Somaliland: a cross-sectional study.
In resource-poor settings, where health systems are frequently stretched to their capacity, access to emergency care is often limited. Triage systems have been proposed as a tool to ensure efficiency and optimal use of emergency resources in such contexts. However, evidence on the practice of emergency care and the implementation of triage systems in such settings, is scarce. This study aimed to assess emergency care provision in the Burao district hospital in Somaliland, including the application of the South African Triage Scale (SATS) tool. ⋯ This is the first study assessing the implementation of SATS in a post-conflict and resource-limited African setting showing that most indicators met the expected standards. In particular, specific attention is needed to improve the relatively low rate of true emergency cases, delays in patient presentation and in timely provision of care within the ED. This study also highlights the need for development of emergency care thresholds that are more adapted to resource-poor contexts. These issues are discussed.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2014
Variations and inter-relationship in outcome from emergency admissions in England: a retrospective analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics from 2005-2010.
The quality of care delivered and clinical outcomes of care are of paramount importance. Wide variations in the outcome of emergency care have been suggested, but the scale of variation, and the way in which outcomes are inter-related are poorly defined and are critical to understand how best to improve services. This study quantifies the scale of variation in three outcomes for a contemporary cohort of patients undergoing emergency medical and surgical admissions. The way in which the outcomes of different diagnoses relate to each other is investigated. ⋯ Hospital-level risk-standardised outcomes for emergency admissions across a range of specialties vary considerably and cross traditional speciality boundaries. This suggests that global institutional infra-structure and processes of care influence outcomes. The implications are far reaching, both in terms of investigating performance at individual hospitals and in understanding how hospitals can learn from the best performers to improve outcomes.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2014
Comparative StudyEstimating recruitment rates for routine use of patient reported outcome measures and the impact on provider comparisons.
The routine use of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) aims to compare providers as regards the clinical need of their patients and their outcome. Simple methods of estimating recruitment rates based on aggregated data may be inaccurate. Our objectives were to: use patient-level linked data to evaluate these estimates; produce revised estimates of national and providers' recruitment rates; and explore whether or not recruitment bias exists. ⋯ Accurate recruitment rates require the use of linked data to establish consistent inclusion criteria for numerators and denominators. Non-recruitment will bias comparisons of providers' pre-operative case-mix and may bias comparisons of outcomes if unmeasured confounders are not evenly distributed between providers. It is important, therefore, to strive for high recruitment rates.