hospital mortality Tag

08 May

Posted at 20:24h in Author Interviews, Education, Outcomes & Safety
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Veronica Toffolutti PhD Postdoctoral researcher working with Professor David Stuckler Department of Sociology Bocconi University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Openness has been linked with better patient safety and better understanding of patients’ care goals. In addition, more open environments appear to be linked with positively ranked quality of teamwork, which in turns lead to better health care. Yet if the expected benefits are to be achieved, it is necessary to show that greater openness actually corresponds to improvements in performance or lower mortality rates. To the best of our knowledge our is the first study to show an association between hospital mortality and openness and more precisely one point increase in the standardized openness score leads to a decrease of 6.48% in the hospital mortality rates. With the term openness we refer to an environment in which communication among patients, staff members and managers is open and transparent. 

16 Aug

Posted at 17:51h in AHRQ, Author Interviews, Outcomes & Safety
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kevin Heslin, Ph.D., Staff Service Fellow, Center for Delivery, Organization and Markets, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Heslin: Previous trends in inpatient mortality suggest that rates have been decreasing for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF), stroke, and pneumonia (Hines et al., 2010; Stepanova et al., 2013).  Continued study of these trends can help researchers and policymakers assess the impact of health care quality efforts.  Further, examining trends across patient and hospital subgroups may inform strategies for addressing disparities in health care quality by identifying groups that are leading and lagging in improvement. Medical Research: What is the background for this study Dr. Heslin: From 2002 to 2012, inpatient mortality decreased among patients admitted to U.S. hospitals for pneumonia (45 percent decrease, from 65.0 to 35.8 deaths per 1,000 admissions), AMI (41 percent decrease, from 94.0 to 55.9 deaths per 1,000 admissions), CHF (29 percent decrease, from 44.4 to 31.4 deaths per 1,000 admissions), and stroke (27 percent decrease, from 112.6 to 82.6 deaths per 1,000 admissions).  The inpatient mortality rate for all four conditions decreased among both younger and older patients, and among men and women.

04 Mar

Posted at 00:25h in Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, Lancet, Nursing, University of Pennsylvania
Professor Linda H Aiken PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing, Professor of Sociology Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research University of Pennsylvania School of NursingMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Linda H Aiken PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing, Professor of Sociology Director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing MedicalResearch.com: Austerity measures and health-system redesign to minimise hospital expenditures risk adversely affecting patient outcomes. Against that backdrop, can you start by letting us know the background of the study?  Prof. Aiken: European Surgical Outcomes Study in 28 countries showed higher than necessary deaths after surgery. A comparable study in the US showed that despite the nation spending hundreds of millions of dollars on improving patient safety, there were no improvements in adverse outcomes after surgery in US hospitals between 2000 and 2009.  Clearly it is time to consider new solutions to improving hospital care for surgical patients, who make up a large proportion of all hospital admissions.  Our study was designed to determine whether there are risks for patients of reducing hospital nurse staffing, and what, if any, are the benefits to patients of moving to a more educated nurse workforce.