| Unexpected, periodic and permanent increase in medical inpatient care: man-made or new disease? | |
| | |
MedLine Citation:
|
PMID: 20138437 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
|
For many years medical admissions to acute hospitals have been increasing at a rate far higher than expected from demographic change. Factors such as emergency re-admission, GP thresholds, breakdown of the family unit and deficiencies in community and social care have been suggested to explain this widening gap. Solutions to the problem have revolved around demand management strategies. While such strategies do result in a relative reduction in demand they are unable to prevent the underlying long-term behaviour. Analysis of daily admissions in Scotland, England and at individual hospitals over the past 25 years shows that the admissions tend to increase in a step-like manner at an interval of three to six years. This causes a typical 10% step-increase in physician work-load and inpatient medical costs and across England adds over 1,200,000 occupied bed days of additional bed demand into the health service within the space of around three months. There are knock-on effects to demand for ambulance services, accident and emergency attendance and GP referral. The step-increase is characterised by a cluster of diagnoses, increases with age and effects women more than men. Such behaviour has similarities to an infectious outbreak and the evidence for this and alternative hypotheses are discussed. |
| | |
Authors:
|
Rodney P Jones |
Related Documents
:
|
17351927 - Physician-diagnosed asthma and acute chest syndrome: associations with nos polymorphisms. 8639137 - Optimizing the hospital management of leg ulcers. 11388127 - Health insurance, primary care, and preventable hospitalization of children in a large ... 19958027 - Concentration response functions for ultrafine particles and all-cause mortality and ho... 11685667 - Dermatologists and allergists have far more experience and use more complex treatment r... 10435847 - Reporting comparative results from hospital patient surveys. |
Publication Detail:
|
Type: Journal Article Date: 2010-02-06 |
Journal Detail:
|
Title: Medical hypotheses Volume: 74 ISSN: 1532-2777 ISO Abbreviation: Med. Hypotheses Publication Date: 2010 Jun |
Date Detail:
|
Created Date: 2010-04-14 Completed Date: 2010-07-29 Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
|
Nlm Unique ID: 7505668 Medline TA: Med Hypotheses Country: United States |
Other Details:
|
Languages: eng Pagination: 978-83 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
|
Healthcare Analysis and Forecasting, Honister Walk, Camberley, Surrey GU15 1RQ, UK. hcaf_rod@yahoo.co.uk |
Export Citation:
|
APA/MLA Format Download EndNote Download BibTex |
| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
|
Disease Outbreaks
/
statistics & numerical data Female Great Britain / epidemiology Health Policy Hospitalization / statistics & numerical data, trends* Humans Inpatients / statistics & numerical data Male Models, Theoretical Patient Admission / statistics & numerical data, trends |
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
Previous Document: Prolonged inflammation following critical illness may impair long-term survival: A hypothesis with p...
Next Document: Human semen: The biological basis of sexual behaviour to promote human papillomavirus infection and ...