All Entries Tagged With: "mortality rates"
Hospitalists and PAs save more lives than residents, new study says
At Coney Island Hospital, hospitalists and physician assistants (PAs) replaced medical residents for two years to measure patient outcomes. Researchers evaluated mortality rates, adverse events, readmissions, and patient satisfaction. They found that the quality of care provided by hospitalists and PAs was similar to that provided by residents. However, mortality rates were significantly lower on the hospitalist-PA service compared to the resident service, according to “Replacing an Academic Internal Medicine Residency Program with a Physician Assistant-Hospitalist Model: A Comparative Analysis Study,” published in the February issue of American Journal of Medical Quality. The study included the following comparison data:
Clinical information technology reduces inpatient deaths and cuts costs
Clinical information technology can improve clinical and financial outcomes, according to a new study, “Clinical Information Technologies and Inpatient Outcomes: A Multiple Hospital Study” in the Jan. 26 Archives of Internal Medicine.
Researchers studied more than 167,000 patients admitted to urban Texas hospitals between 2005 and 2006. They found that automated hospital information (notes and records) helped reduce inpatient mortality rates, complications, and costs.
Hospitalist service and house staff service produce equivalent outcomes
In academic centers, two types of services offer a similar quality and efficiency of patient care: (1) traditional house staff services and (2) services with physician assistants, supervised by hospitalists, according to a new study by Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, called “Implementation of a physician assistant/hospitalist service in an academic medical center: Impact on efficiency and patient outcomes,” published in the October issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
In a survey of nearly 5,200 patients admitted to a general medical service between July 2005 and June 2006, researchers found that patient outcome measures were not significantly different between these two types of services. Length of stay, inpatient mortality, ICU transfers, readmissions, and patient satisfaction were effectively the same.
“For general medicine inpatients admitted to an academic medical center, a service staffed by hospitalists and physician assistants can provide a safe alternative to house staff services, with comparable efficiency,” researchers of the study concluded in the abstract.
