Journal of general internal medicine
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
The impact of leaving against medical advice on hospital resource utilization.
To assess the effect of hospital discharge against medical advice (AMA) on the interpretation of charges and length of stay attributable to alcoholism. ⋯ Discharge AMA affects the interpretation of the relation between alcoholism and utilization. The ARD-attributable utilization was greater when analyses adjusted for or excluded AMA cases. Not accounting for leaving AMA resulted in an underestimation of the impact of alcoholism on resource utilization.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Racial differences in the utilization of oral anticoagulant therapy in heart failure: a study of elderly hospitalized patients.
To assess racial differences in the use of oral anticoagulant therapy for patients with heart failure, we conducted a cohort study of 30 hospitals in northeast Ohio. For 12,911 Medicare enrollees consecutively admitted in 1992 through 1994 with heart failure, crude and adjusted odds of being on oral anticoagulation were determined. The crude and adjusted odds of being African Americans on oral anticoagulant therapy relative to whites were 0.57 (95% confidence interval 0.47-0.69) and 0.55 (95% confidence interval 0. 45-0.67), respectively. African-Americans with heart failure were much less likely than whites to receive oral anticoagulant therapy, even after adjusting for other variables associated with anticoagulant use.