Articles: mortality.
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Spontaneous rupture of the right gastroepiploic artery is an extremely rare case which can be a cause of abdominal apoplexy. ⋯ Simultaneous restoration of circulating volume and rapid diagnosis are keys in determining the patient outcome in this situation. Though the mortality is high if untreated, the operation is relatively simple and carries a low risk.
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Bmc Health Serv Res · Jan 2009
Hospital discharge planning and continuity of care for aged people in an Italian local health unit: does the care-home model reduce hospital readmission and mortality rates?
Hospital discharge planning is aimed to decrease length of stay in hospitals as well as to ensure continuity of health care after being discharged. Hospitalized patients in Turin, Italy, who are in need of medical, social and rehabilitative care are proposed as candidates to either discharge planning relying on a care-home model (DPCH) for a period of about 30 days, or routine discharge care. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a hospital DPCH that was compared with routine care, improved patients' outcomes in terms of reduced hospital readmission and mortality rates in patients aged 64 years and older. ⋯ The use of DPCH after hospital discharge reduced mortality rates, but only when it was followed by a long-term health care plan, thus ensuring continuity of care for elderly participants.
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A paradoxical pattern has been suggested in the literature on doctors' strikes: when health workers go on strike, mortality stays level or decreases. We performed a review of the literature during the past forty years to assess this paradox. We used PubMed, EconLit and Jstor to locate all peer-reviewed English-language articles presenting data analysis on mortality associated with doctors' strikes. ⋯ Further, hospitals often re-assign scarce staff and emergency care was available during all of the strikes. Finally, none of the strikes may have lasted long enough to assess the effects of long-term reduced access to a physician. Nonetheless, the literature suggests that reductions in mortality may result from these strikes.
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Previous studies have relied predominantly on the body-mass index (BMI, the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) to assess the association of adiposity with the risk of death, but few have examined whether the distribution of body fat contributes to the prediction of death. ⋯ These data suggest that both general adiposity and abdominal adiposity are associated with the risk of death and support the use of waist circumference or waist-to-hip ratio in addition to BMI in assessing the risk of death.
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Curr. Opin. Cardiol. · Nov 2008
ReviewIncreased mortality, morbidity, and cost associated with red blood cell transfusion after cardiac surgery.
Literature since 2006 was reviewed to identify the harms and costs of red blood cell (RBC) transfusion. ⋯ The harms of RBC transfusion have potentially serious and long-term consequences for patients and are costly for health services. This evidence should shift clinicians' equipoise towards more restrictive transfusion practice. The immediate aim should be to avoid transfusing a small number of RBC units for general malaise attributed to anaemia, a practice that appears to occur in about 50% of transfused patients. Randomized trials comparing restrictive and liberal transfusion triggers are urgently needed to directly compare the benefits and harms from RBC transfusion.