Swiss medical weekly
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Swiss medical weekly · Mar 2021
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyContinuous versus routine EEG in critically ill adults: reimbursement analysis of a randomised trial.
Continuous EEG (cEEG) is increasingly used in critically ill patients, but it is more resource-intensive than routine EEG (rEEG). In the US, cEEG generates increased hospitalisation charges. This study analysed hospital-related reimbursement for participants in a Swiss multicentre randomised controlled trial that assessed the relationship of cEEG versus repeated rEEG with outcome. ⋯ In a Swiss Diagnosis Related Groups billing system applied to critically ill adults, reimbursement largely depends on duration of acute hospital stay, whereas cEEG and lack of seizure/ status epilepticus detection also contribute to the bill. This differs from the USA, where charges are directly increased by cEEG.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jun 2019
Multicenter StudyPatterns of multimorbidity in internal medicine patients in Swiss university hospitals: a multicentre cohort study.
Despite the high prevalence of multimorbidity, we lack detailed descriptive data on the most prevalent combinations of chronic comorbidities in Switzerland. We aimed to describe and quantify the most prevalent combinations of comorbidities in internal medicine multimorbid inpatients. ⋯ The vast majority of patients fulfilled the criteria for multimorbidity. Chronic heart disease, chronic kidney disease, solid malignancy and substance-related disorders were each present in at least one tenth of the patients. This in-depth description of the most frequent comorbidities and of their frequent associations in a multicentre population may advise healthcare providers to improve preventive care and develop appropriate guidelines for multimorbid patients.  .
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2018
Multicenter StudyPoint prevalence of healthcare-associated infections and antibiotic use in three large Swiss acute-care hospitals.
The overall burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) remains high, even in high-income countries. However, the current burden of HAI in Switzerland is unknown. Prevalence surveys have a long tradition in the field of infection prevention and control for measuring both HAI and antimicrobial use. The objective of this survey was to test the point prevalence survey (PPS) methodology of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in acute-care hospitals in Switzerland. ⋯ HAI prevalence and antimicrobial use in this survey were similar to findings of the past ECDC PPS. The ECDC methodology proved applicable to Swiss acute-care hospitals.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2014
Multicenter StudySwiss Monitoring of Potential Organ Donors (SwissPOD): a prospective 12-month cohort study of all adult ICU deaths in Switzerland.
The Swiss Monitoring of Potential Organ Donors (SwissPOD) was initiated to investigate the causes of the overall low organ donation rate in Switzerland. The objective of our study was an assessment of the donation after brain death (DBD) process in Swiss adult intensive care units (ICUs), and to provide an overview of the donation efficiency as well as of the reasons for non-donation. ⋯ Despite the low donation rate, Swiss adult ICUs are performing well in terms of the conversion rate, similar to major European countries. The refusal rate is among the highest in Europe, which clearly has a negative impact on the donation rate. Optimising the request process seems to be the most effective means of increasing the donation rate.
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Swiss medical weekly · Jan 2012
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyNurse-reported patient safety climate in Swiss hospitals: a descriptive-explorative substudy of the Swiss RN4CAST study.
Measuring the patient safety climate in the organisation of healthcare can help to identify problematic issues with a view to improving patient safety. We aimed (1) to describe the nurse-reported engagement in safety behaviours, (2) to describe the prevailing nurse-reported patient safety climate of general medical, surgical and mixed medical-surgical units in Swiss acute-care hospitals and (3) to explore differences between hospital type, unit type and language regions. ⋯ The findings of this study suggest a need to improve the patient safety climate on many units in Swiss hospitals. Leaders in hospitals should strengthen the patient safety climate at unit level by implementing methods, such as root cause analysis or patient safety leadership walk rounds, to improve individual and team skills and redesign work processes. The impact of these efforts should be measured by periodically assessing the patient safety climate with the SOS.