It has come to our attention—and we hope yours too—that there is a lot of great talent on our editorial board. Thus, we have decided to add a new recurring feature—which we hope will be informative without coming across as inordinately self-promotional—designed to let you get to know these people a little bit better. For [...]
What’s going to happen to me?” he asked. “The lung doctor says I’m not in good enough shape to be operated on. What chance do I have of beating lung cancer if they don’t operate?”
If the question had appeared on a medical board exam, it would have been quite simple: a 60-year-old male who had [...]
The concept of receiving additional resources or privileges, on the basis of better-than-expected results, is the bedrock of the American business model. Whether it’s bonuses, promotions, or congratulations from the boss, rewards are meant to motivate individuals and teams to strive for excellence. And these rewards do work! However, the design of an incentive program [...]
In the U.S., a number of educational programs have recently been developed to meet the emerging need for experts and professionals who are capable of conducting, interpreting, and using health economic evaluations for health care decision-making. Among the diverse types of educational offerings, pharmacoeconomic and outcomes research (PE/OR) fellowship programs have become one of the [...]
Implementation of the CAP guidelines was found to improve the quality of care by increasing the proportion of patients receiving an appropriate antibiotic and decreasing the time between the ordering and administration of these antibiotics in a rural community hospital. These improvements contributed to the one-day decreased LOS, which consequently resulted in the reduction in [...]
Baseline Evaluation
A total of 259 patients were included in the study, 134 patients in the pre-intervention group and 125 patients in the post-intervention group. The sex and age distributions of patients identified in the two groups are shown in Table 2.
The process of developing the CAP guidelines began in 1999 at LRGH. The Infection Control and Epidemiology Committee had established a Respiratory Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) subcommittee to address the rising rates of hospital-acquired (nosocomial) pneumonia. This multidisciplinary group reviewed all cases of nosocomial pneumonia and recommended improvements that resulted in a reduction of these [...]
