Difference in the incidence of Clostridium difficile among patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus admitted to a public hospital and a private hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the occurrence of Clostridium difficile among inpatients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in two different hospitals. DESIGN: Prospective, observational study. SETTING: Specialized HIV inpatient units. PATlENTS: HIV-infected inpatients at Cook County Hospital (CCH) and Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center (RPSLMC). INTERVENTIONS: A clinical and epidemiologic assessment of patient risk factors for C. difficile was performed. C. difficile isolates found on stool, rectal, and environmental cultures were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. RESULTS: Twenty-seven percent of patients admitted to CCH versus 4% of patients admitted to RPSLMC had positive cultures for C. difficile (P = .001). At CCH, 14.7% of environmental cultures were positive versus 2.9% at RPSLMC (P = .002). Risk factors for C. difficile acquisition included hospitalization at CCH, more severe HIV, use of acyclovir and H2-blockers, and longer hospital stay. Patients admitted to CCH were taking more antibiotics, had longer hospital stays, and more frequently had a history of C. difficile infection. During the study, two strains (CD1A and CD4) extensively contaminated the CCH environment. However, only CD1A caused an outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: The C. difficile acquisition rate at CCH was sevenfold higher than that at RPSLMC, and CCH had a more contaminated environment. Differences in patient acquisition rates likely reflect a greater prevalence of traditional C. difficile risk factors and a concurrent outbreak at CCH. Although two strains heavily contaminated the environment at CCH, only one caused an outbreak, suggesting that factors other than the environment are important in initiating C. difficile outbreaks.     

Predicting hospital choice for rural Medicare beneficiaries: the role of severity of illness.

Previous research has confirmed that desirable hospital attributes as well as increased distance, or travel time, have an impact on hospital choice. These studies have become increasingly sophisticated in modeling choice. This study adds to the existing literature by estimating the effect of both hospital and individual characteristics on hospital choice, using McFadden's conditional logit model. Some patient characteristics have not previously been accounted for in this type of analysis. In particular, the effect of a patient's complexity of illness (as measured by Disease Staging) on the choice of hospital is taken into account. The data consist of over 12,000 Medicare discharges in three overlapping rural market areas during 1986. The hospital choice set was aggregated into seven groups of urban and rural hospitals. Results indicate that rural Medicare beneficiaries tend to choose hospitals with a large scope of service and with teaching activity over those with a lower scope of service and no teaching activity, holding other factors constant. Distance is a deterrent to hospital choice, especially for older Medicare beneficiaries. The more complex cases tend to choose larger urban and rural hospitals over small rural hospitals more often than less complex cases do.     

我国民营医院发展趋势及对公立医院的影响分析

目的:分析我国民营医院的发展趋势,探讨民营医院对公立医院的影响,为民营医院与公立医院平衡发展提供政策建议.方法:利用2005-2011年官方统计数据,对我国民营医院的数量、规模、服务能力等进行分析.结果:民营医院发展迅速,服务能力逐年增强,已成为我国医疗服务体系的重要组成部分.结论:应加强制度建设与对接,促进民营医院与公立医院良性发展.     

不同举办主体的两家非营利性医疗机构历史和现状的比较

目的 :比较两家不同举办主体的医疗机构在发展历程、规模、服务能力的差异,揭示社会资本办医之困境。方法 :通过深度访谈和问卷调查,对两家医院历史和运营数据进行描述性分析。结果 :两家不同举办主体的医疗机构,在发展演变、医院规模、医疗服务能力等方面存在差异。结论 :管理创新是促进民营医院发展的重要因素;人才短缺是制约民营医院发展的重要因素;政府扶持是保证民营医院发展的重要因素。     

Neighborhood characteristics and hospital closures: A comparison of the public,private and voluntary hospital systems

This paper analyzes the neighborhood distribution of hospital closures in New York City between 1970 and 1981. Discriminant analysis procedures are used to compare the social, economic and health status characteristics of neighborhoods in which hospitals have closed with those of neighborhoods in which facilities have remained open. The results show that overall hospital closures have had a substantial distributional impact, with facilities in low-income, high infant mortality neighborhoods having the highest rates of failure. Closure of voluntary hospitals occured most frequently in disadvantaged neighborhoods; whereas municipal and proprietary hospital closures showed no differential neighborhood impact. Implications for the geographical accessibility to various groups to health care and for the efficiency and cost of hospital services are discussed.     

Differences in U.S. hospital service utilization between traditional Medicare and Medicare HMO patients

This study examines the differences between traditional U.S. Medicare and Medicare HMO Florida inpatient hospital utilization during the years 1992-1998, using nine high volume Diagnosis Related Groups. Utilization was measured by the number of ancillary services consumed, as well as the charges for those services. The analyses controlled for differences in utilization due to patient age, race, hospital size, year and market differences in hospital costs. Patient data were severity-adjusted and the analysis focused on the patients at the highest severity level. The study found that Medicare HMO patients with chronic diseases at the highest severity of illness level consumed significantly more services than traditional Medicare patients with the same chronic diseases. It was concluded that these Medicare HMO patients were either sicker (despite the severity adjustment) than the traditional Medicare patients and/or Medicare HMOs used different production processes than traditional Medicare, perhaps in order to minimize length of stay. Medicare HMO patients with acute illnesses at the highest severity level did not, in general, consume significantly more services than traditional Medicare patients at the same level of severity for the same diagnoses. The results imply that Medicare policy with regard to HMO expansion may not result in cost savings, and may, instead, result in higher costs if the proportion of the Medicare population hospitalized with chronic illnesses increases.     

Comparing public and private hospital care service quality in Turkey

PURPOSE: The aim of this article is to examine the differences in service quality between public and private hospitals in Turkey. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This study applies the principles behind the SERVQUAL model and compares Turkey's public and private hospital care service quality. The study sample contains a total of 200 outpatients. Through the identification of 40 service quality indicators and the use of a Likert-type scale, two questionnaires containing 80-items was developed. The former measured patients' expectations prior to admission to public and private hospital service quality. The latter measured patient perceptions of provided service quality. FINDINGS: The results indicate that inpatients in the private hospitals were more satisfied with service quality than those in the public hospitals. The results also suggest that inpatients in the private hospitals were more satisfied with doctors, nurses and supportive services than their counterparts in the public hospitals. Finally, the results show that satisfaction with doctors and reasonable costs is the biggest determinants of service quality in the public hospitals. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Consequently, SERVQUAL, as a standard instrument for measuring functional service quality, is reliable and valid in a hospital environment.     

Hormonal contraception: a comparison between patients of the private and public health network

The aim of this paper is to assess the profile of patients using hormonal contraceptives in the public health network and a comparison with the private health service, as well as the frequency of side effects and adherence to treatment. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 240 patients, namely 120 patients from the private health service and 120 patients from the public health network. The most commonly prescribed hormonal dosage on the private group (36.7%) was 15 or 20 micrograms of ethinyl estradiol (EE), associated with gestodene, desogestrel or levonorgestrel. On the other hand, the prescribed hormonal dosage in the public group was a combination of 30 micrograms of EE associated with gestodene, levonorgestrel or desogestrel (48.3%). There was no difference between the frequency of side effects in both groups surveyed (p>0.05). Meanwhile, adherence to treatment was higher in patients of the private group. The authors concluded that the most widely used contraceptive method was a low oral dose of ethinyl estradiol and there is no difference between the frequency of side effects. However, adherence to treatment was higher in the private group, which may be associated with social and cultural aspects of the patients surveyed.     

Predicting length of stay for Medicare patients at a teaching hospital.

This research examines how the patients' characteristics and clinical indicators affect length of stay for the top five Diagnosis-Related-Groups (DRGs) for Medicare patients at a teaching hospital in the United States. The top DRGs were selected on the basis of volume per year. Teaching hospitals in the United States devote a significant amount of their resources to research and teaching, while providing treatment for patients. The ability to predict length of stay can substantially improve a teaching hospital's capacity utilization, while ensuring that resources are available to meet the health care needs of the Medicare population. Multiple regression models are developed to predict the length of stay using the patients' characteristics and clinical indicators as independent variables. The results indicate that approximately 60 percent (R(2)) of the variance in the length of stay is explained by the patients' characteristics and clinical indicators for these DRGs. The Mortality and Severity indices are found to be the strongest predictors for length of stay in all DRGs. Other patients' characteristics and clinical indicators such as age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, admission type and admission source are also significant predictors for some DRGs. In addition, most of these variables affect the length of stay in the same manner as shown in previous studies, even though the previous studies do not have the DRG specificity of this study.     

不同举办主体的两家非营利性医疗机构财务经营和持续发展比较研究

目的:比较两家不同举办主体的医疗机构在经济运行情况和社会效益方面的差异,揭示社会资本办医之困境。方法 :通过深度访谈和问卷调查,对两家医院经济运行和社会效益等指标和数据进行描述性分析。结果 :两家不同举办主体的医疗机构,在经济运行状况和持续发展能力方面存在差异。结论 :公立医院的经济运行状况和持续发展能力好于民营医院。     

Family members' needs at intensive care units: comparative analysis between a public and a private hospital

This cross-sectional study proposed to analyze the needs of adult ICU patients' family members at a public and a private hospital, regarding their level of importance and satisfaction. Ninety-one family members were interviewed, 47 from the public hospital and 44 from the private one, using the Brazilian adaptation of the Critical Care Family Need Inventory (INEFTI). There was no significant difference between the groups in the total score of importance attributed to the needs (p=0.410). The satisfaction score was higher in the private hospital than in the public one (p=0.002). Multiple linear regression analysis allowed us to establish a hierarchy of importance and satisfaction of the family members' needs in each group. The differences observed between the groups suggest that the fulfillment of their needs requires interventions directed at the specificity of each type of hospital.     

The teaching hospital under Medicare: a prejudiced position.

Given the special challenges and problems of teaching hospitals,...these institutions should be treated at least no worse than hospitals with no teaching affiliations. Interest expense on hospital related debt should be reimbursed without regard to income earned by nonhospital related investment.     

A comparison of populations vaccinated in a public service and in a private hospital setting in the same area

Background  

Improving immunisation rates in risk groups is one of the main objectives in vaccination strategies. However, achieving high vaccination rates in children with chronic conditions is difficult. Different types of vaccine providers may differently attract high risk children.     

Cluster randomization in large public health trials: the importance of antecedent data.

Large-scale public health trials are often randomized by geographic or administrative clusters, for reasons of financial or organizational exigency. In this paper, we deal with the situation where the dependent variable is a count of events, such as mortality from, or incidence of a given disease. Simulation results show that this design may decrease power by more than 50 per cent. The lost power can largely be replaced by incorporating information on the dependent variable, within clusters, before the start of the trial. The pretrial and trial data can be analysed by negative trinomial models.     

Racial and ethnic differences in public and private medical care expenditures among aged Medicare beneficiaries

This study examines the current allocation of medical care expenditures among non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic seniors who are Medicare beneficiaries. Analyses of both "need-based" and "demand-based" perspectives found that white, black, and Hispanic seniors in similar health had similar total annual expenditures for medical care. The groups did, however, differ substantially in the distribution of expenditures between public and private sources of payment. Notably, racial and ethnic differences in public and private expenditures all but vanished when socioeconomic variables and health insurance coverage were included in the analyses. The findings suggest that public sources of payment for medical care services, especially public supplementary coverage have helped to eliminate racial and ethnic gaps in expenditures.