PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

J A Coventry

Publications and source records attributed to J A Coventry.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Emergency room encounters of pediatric patients with asthma: cost comparisons with other treatment settings.

More than 67,000 claims from a national database were analyzed to determine the relative costs of treating pediatric patients with asthma in physicians' offices, hospital outpatient departments, or emergency rooms. Billed charges and paid claims for these cases in emergency rooms average more than 5 times higher than in physician offices. Emergency treatment generally results from a failure of proper management and education in the primary care setting. Educational programs for pediatric patients with asthma and their families could save resources as well as reduce the trauma often associated with visits to the emergency room.

Ambulatory Care Facilities↗

Access implications of rural hospital closures and conversions.

This article examines the effects of rural hospital closures and conversions on various structural dimensions of access. Based on a data set of rural hospitals in Texas during the period 1985-1990, the results indicate that closure or conversion typically had relatively little detrimental effect on hospital services and distance to alternative sources of care, but hospital bed and physician availability may have been adversely affected in certain cases. Rural hospital conversions to alternative types of health care facilities, such as ambulatory care clinics, do appear to have maintained the availability of a restricted set of medical services in some rural areas.

Accreditation↗

Rural hospital closures. Determinants of conversion to an alternative health care facility.

Conversion of closed hospitals to alternative health care facilities is often suggested as a way of maintaining the availability of medical services in rural areas. This study investigates the factors that influence whether or not a closed rural hospital will convert to an alternative health care facility. The study uses primary data collected from a survey of rural hospitals in Texas that closed during the years 1985 through 1990. Regression results indicate that conversion was more likely when the local economy was healthier and when there were fewer substitute forms of health services. Ownership also played a role: government-operated hospitals that closed were less likely to convert than were private not-for-profit providers. The results of the study will be useful for evaluating programs designed to encourage alternative ways to provide health care services in rural areas.

Bed Conversion↗

Ancillary service consumption by Military Health Service System special programs: implications for diagnosis related group resource allocation.

An analysis was conducted of consumption of ancillary services by medical treatment facility special programs within the Military Health Service System (MHSS). This workload would not receive explicit credit under the new weighted ambulatory visit/inpatient disposition workload credit system mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987. Results indicated that ancillary workload consumption by facility special programs was substantial. When the weighted visit/disposition workload credit system is implemented throughout MHSS, appropriate adjustments must be made to reflect ancillary workload generated by MHSS facilities in support of direct patient care missions but lost under this type of credit system.

Ancillary Services, Hospital↗

Factors affecting compliance for general medicine consultations to non-internists.

For a general medicine consultation service to be effective, compliance with recommendations is essential, as is an understanding of the factors that improve compliance. Residents in a general medicine consultation service attempted prospectively to improve their skills as consultants and to enhance compliance by implementing the following steps, reported to influence compliance: identify critical recommendations; make early, direct oral contact with the referring surgeon; limit the number of recommendations; and render definite recommendations. At the end of the study period, recommendations were tabulated and categorized as to whether each was diagnostic or therapeutic and critical or noncritical, and the time of contact with the referring surgeons was noted when applicable. Multivariate analysis of the factors, in relation to the type of recommendation, demonstrated that compliance can be improved, especially if a consultant clearly identifies the critical recommendations and makes contact with the referring physician within 24 hours.

Education, Medical, Graduate↗