Although controversy still exists about dispensing medical advice over the telephone, such services are widely offered by pediatricians in the USA. In Israel, however, such services have not yet been developed. In a joint project of the Moked Keshev (a private medical help line) at Magen David Adom (national ambulance ...

George E. Moerkirk, MD, FACS, is director of prehospital emergency medical services and former medical director of aeromedical services at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown. Since the early 1960s, Dr. Moerkirk has been a driving force in statewide efforts to develop and maintain a quality emergency medical services system in ...

Heat illness in the Armed Forces is an emotive issue. No specific service-wide system currently exists to monitor the incidence of heat illness. Within British Forces Cyprus medical policy guidelines for physical activity at various Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) readings were issued in 1988. A local system for reporting ...

Ruggero Oddi was born of a modest family in the small town of Perugia, Italy, in 1866. While still a young medical student, he identified the sphincter and in addition characterized its physiological properties. At the early age of 29 years, he was appointed as the director of the Physiological ...

INTRODUCTION: Flight following is a key component of an air medical transport service's safety program. National standards require conscientious adherence to flight following. EastCare monitored its compliance with internal flight-following requirements for three years. SETTING: EastCare is a single-helicopter, hospital-based air medical transport service located in a rural region of ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To describe the type of medical care that disaster medical assistance teams (DMATs) provided to a community struck by a major hurricane. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective study describing the use of DMAT field clinics by a population affected by a major hurricane. Data regarding the type of medical ...

Although the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 106: Employers' Accounting for Postretirement Benefits Other Than Pensions requires that the anticipated cost of providing medical services to an employee following his or her retirement be accrued while the individual is employed, hospitals that provide their retirees with medical services are ...

Beginning in November 1991, the United States Department of Defense established a Joint Task Force (JTF) to deal with the mass migration of Haitians. During the next 9 months, pending a determination of their immigration status, 34,000 Haitians were managed by uniformed service personnel at a temporary camp facility at ...

In an effort to reduce cost and improve service, Materiels Management Distribution Services, in cooperation with a prime vendor, created a distribution method unique to the needs of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. The project combined the vendor's expertise and ability to "deliver direct" to an internal hospital location by ...

Dominique Jean Larrey's introduction of a 'flying ambulance' into Napoleons army was a great advance in military surgery. British arrangements for the transport of wounded and sick during the Napoleonic wars fell far short of Larrey's humanitarian vision. The efforts of eminent doctors such as Sir James McGrigor to create ...

Changes in the way health care is delivered in the UK are having a direct impact on medical physics and medical engineering services. To help understand how these services are managed and how they might be affected by such changes, a questionnaire was circulated to 110 UK medical physics/medical engineering ...

Forensic medical services in South Africa are rendered by state-employed district surgeons and forensic pathologists, who are obliged to utilize the physical infrastructure and personnel of the South African Police in their examinations. Recent highly publicized incidents have (again) highlighted the alleged involvement of the South African Police and/or state ...

In a 3 x 2 factorial design, 360 new admissions to methadone maintenance were randomly assigned to one of three levels of counseling: (1) "medication only," (2) "standard" counseling, and (3) "enhanced" services; and one of two contingency contracting conditions: (1) no contingencies (NC), and (2) contingency contracting (CC). Contingency ...

Medical service marks, like other service marks and trademarks, are subject to public misuse and infringement. Such misuses are sometimes innocent and sometimes fraudulently motivated. For example, throughout the history of the Mayo Clinic, the Mayo name has been publicly appropriated by unauthorized users attempting to claim an endorsement or ...

Two types of hospices exist: medical and volunteer. Medical hospices are constrained by Medicare regulations. Volunteer hospices fill in the gaps that those regulations leave, providing flexible, supportive care. The community that is served by both medical and volunteer hospice programs offers truly comprehensive care to the dying and their ...

The purpose of this study was to model the financial impact of the Medicare Fee Schedule (MFS) on an anesthesiology department in a large academic medical center under two different scenarios. Scenario 1 assumes continued use of actual-time units throughout the five-year transition period. Scenario 2 assumes a change to ...

Through a documented case study the authors identify the critical factors that impede the introduction of prepaid medical care as part of education and practice within a prestigious and well established academic medical center. The inherent conflicts between individual fee-for-service practice and population-based prepaid practice and the resistance to innovations ...

Surveys were distributed to referring and receiving hospitals or to EMS agencies that used the air medical service. The respondents were asked to evaluate the dispatcher's, pilot's and flight crew's professionalism and courteousness on a Likert scale and through written comments. Phase 1 of the survey distribution was discontinued after ...

Trends in amenable mortality rates for Maori and non-Maori New Zealanders were analysed and compared using regression models. The contribution of medical services to the decline in mortality rates was estimated. Mortality from causes amenable to medical intervention declined at a greater rate than non-amenable mortality for both groups. The ...

BACKGROUND: Most university medical centers do not directly offer electrolysis or thermolysis services to hirsute patients. Little research activity has been focused on these procedures. The successful introduction of a clinical and research electrolysis service into the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) dermatology clinic is described. OBJECTIVE: The purpose ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is amending its regulations that govern expenditures for home improvements or structural alterations for veterans. The Veterans' Medical Programs Amendments Act of 1992 authorized increases for home improvements or structural alterations from $2,500 to $4,100 for service-connected veterans and from $600 to $1,200 for ...

The Isle of Man Tourist Trophy motorcycle races remain one of the most popular venues for motorcycle races. This is despite the reduced status of the event. The reason for the loss of world championship and formula one status is the nature of the road racing circuit itself. The twisting ...

The Army experience with discharges against medical advice (AMA) from 1971 to 1988 is analyzed. AMA discharges have declined in a statistically significant manner in both medical centers and community hospitals. Discharges have decreased among men but increased among women. AMA discharges have decreased for both blacks and whites. Among ...

The future of nuclear medicine is dependent on payment for new procedures. Today, the basis of payment by the federal government is a relative value unit (RVU) system; the RVUS employed in this system are for medical services and procedures listed and described in Physicians' Current Procedural Terminology, fourth edition. ...

The outcome of the first 1000 medical examinations undertaken by London Transport Medical Service (LTMS) to comply with the regulations for non-passenger carrying public carriage vehicle licence holders was analysed to assess where the primary role of the examining doctor affected the final outcome. It was found that the primary ...

Pharmacy operations on Guam during Operation Fiery Vigil are recounted. In June 1991 Mount Pinatubo, a volcano near Clark Air Base in the Philippines, erupted and forced the evacuation of the base's population. Some 20,000 military dependents were transported to Guam. Those evacuees who needed medical attention--some 2500 of them--were ...

A review of 10 years' provision of medical cover at a major golf championship is presented. The average consultation rate was approximately 1 in 200 of those attending of whom 3% required transfer to hospital, the majority to orthopaedic or general medical departments. Familiarity with acute resuscitation and musculoskeletal complaints ...

The goal of this study was to evaluate any changes in medication use in our 60-bed nursing home care unit as a result of eliminating clinical pharmacy services during a 2-week period. Information was obtained on patient medications and number of doses dispensed. All patients were found to have a ...

The United States Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration now requires that surveyors of pharmaceutical services in hospitals include a medication pass observation in the survey process. This observation affords the surveyor the opportunity to follow medications through the complete system, that is, from the time ...

Demographic data, medical problems and diagnosis, and efficiency of laboratory investigations and drug administration were evaluated in all patients admitted to an adult medical ward over a one month period at a district hospital in Kenya. The results show that the medical ward serves a poor, cosmopolitan population in the ...

A survey of paediatric inpatients at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in the University Hospital, Kingston, Jamaica demonstrates that 71% had been treated with herbal remedies before their presentation to the medical services. The risks of the high prevalence of such medication in children are outlined, and two remedies in ...

BACKGROUND--There is a general perception that procedural medical services are reimbursed at an inappropriately greater rate than cognitive services. By congressional mandate, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has been directed to establish a Medicare fee schedule to shift funding under a budget-neutral assumption from procedural to cognitive services. To ...

As an integral part of the economy of Saudi Arabia the industrial sector has rapidly developed in the last decade and is still open for more growth. Thus, there is likely to be an increase in industrial accidents, often with added consequences for the medical services. Because of this, cumulative ...

The Hawaii Medical Fellowship Foundation is a non-profit Hawaii corporation to provide and exchange medical fellowship, knowledge, care, cooperation and service, and to support other humanitarian causes here in Hawaii and abroad. The Foundation plans a mission to China in October 1991. Hawaii physicians, at their own expense and time, ...

We reviewed the pre-Vietnam contents of the service medical and personnel records of 250 Vietnam combat veterans, in an attempt to identify factors predisposing to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD and non-PTSD veterans did not differ significantly on self-reported medical history items, sick call visits, or military ...

It is estimated that five million Americans will travel to the developing world over the next year. This study examines the demographic profile, past medical and immunization history, itinerary, and reason for travel of 2, 445 travelers to the developing world seen at a travel medicine service from 1984 through ...

The clinical ladder at STAT illustrates the service's commitment to clinical excellence and high-level patient care. It also shows that management values the professional efforts of the flight professionals, and are prepared to reward exceptional performance. A clinical ladder program benefits the individual, the patient, the institution, and the air ...

To determine whether emergent readmissions within 30 days of discharge are potentially preventable, we prospectively studied all readmissions to the medical service of a university teaching hospital during a 4-month period. The 327 readmissions, including 42 patients who were readmitted more than once during the study period, accounted for 12% ...

Although many psychiatrists prescribe medications for patients whose primary therapist is a nonmedical professional, few guidelines exist for this practice. Two-thirds of a sample of Connecticut psychiatrists surveyed by mail provided medication backup services, but only one-third considered the practice generally ethical. Seventy-five percent of respondents who provided this service ...

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), on April 26, 1986, was the first major nuclear power plant accident that resulted in a large-scale fire and subsequent explosions, immediate and delayed deaths of plant operators and emergency service workers, and the radioactive contamination of ...

Examined the prediction from Mechanic's (1972) attribution theory of somatization that somatizers who are under stress will overuse ambulatory medical services. Two hundred fourteen volunteer patients from university ambulatory care clinics completed the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and the Life Experiences Inventory. We examined somatization, psychiatric diagnoses, and life stress-and the ...

As an approach to the geopathological evaluation of kidney disease, we conducted a comparative study on IgA nephropathy (IgANP) between Saga Medical School (SMS) in Japan and Kosin Medical College (KMC) in Korea for the period 1983-1987. The relative incidence of IgANP among primary glomerular diseases was significantly higher (P ...

Four theses appear as the focal point of the paper: 1. Variability and specificity of medical protection of the environment, 2. Interdisciplinary character of the medical environment protection, 3. Medical protection of the environment within the powers of the public health services, 4. Medical protection of the environment as a ...

The Connecticut helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) has responded to 12 mass casualty incidents (MCI) in two years. Eight were drills and four were actual events. An MCI response plan was instituted prior to the onset of the HEMS program. All MCIs were reviewed to determine actual victims, knowledge of ...

The Pentagon has authorized the military to contract with private medical groups to supply board certified and board eligible physicians and support personnel to military hospitals to administer specialty medical services. The arrangement, known as a partnership agreement, provides volume to the civilian medical groups and reduces military medical outlays ...

A nationwide survey of county departments of social services revealed a need for medical services and consultation to child protection units. Over 92% of the 84 counties surveyed stated they had a problem meeting their medical needs and would be willing to hire a physician assistant as medical consultant to ...

The games took place in the City of Leicester in August 1989. Over 1500 mentally handicapped competitors took part, many of whom had severe physical handicaps as well. There were 14 different classes of competition, held in seven separate venues, as well as ceremonies and recreational activities. A medical team ...

Concerns regarding significant levels of inappropriate medical services--as high as 20% or more--continue to influence discussions regarding medical care quality, utilization, and costs. The basis of these concerns are findings from a series of studies of the appropriateness of use of several medical and surgical services provided in the late ...

Many consumers of mental health services suffer needlessly as a result of being given the wrong medication or the wrong dosage of the right medication or from other mistakes involving medication. The author, a consumer of mental health services for many years, discusses seven common medication mistakes: incorrect prescribing as ...

Hospitals must document effective use of their resources every three years for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) through a utilization review program. Air medical services remain a large expense for healthcare institutions, so the board of directors of the Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS) directed ...