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Biomedical subjects

K E Kilpatrick

Publications and source records attributed to K E Kilpatrick.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

Inpatients with AIDS and AIDS-related complex: economic inpact on hospitals in North Carolina.

To determine the economic impact of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or AIDS-related complex (ARC) cases on North Carolina hospitals, we collected inpatient data from all North Carolina hospitals on charges and number of patients discharged with these diagnoses. More than 97% of the state's hospitals responded to the survey for the study year (1987-1988). There were 540 AIDS/ARC discharges from 58 North Carolina general hospitals and 125 AIDS/ARC discharges from 13 other types of hospitals, for a statewide total of 665 patients. The total general hospital charges for AIDS/ARC inpatients in North Carolina were approximately $7.7 million per year, and almost $2 million of these charges were uncompensated by any insurance. The greatest burden of cost for this care was borne disproportionately by 15 of the 58 general hospitals, accounting for 82% of the discharges.

AIDS-Related Complex

Uncompensated care provided by private practice physicians in Florida.

While a great deal of attention has been paid in recent years to establishing the magnitude and characteristics of uncompensated care in hospitals, comparatively little research has been undertaken to study physician uncompensated care. This article reports the results of a prospective patient-specific study of uncompensated care in Florida. Of 4,042 cases examined, 26.2 percent had charges voluntarily reduced below the usual and customary charge at the time of service. However, only 13.5 percent of those reductions were attributed to charity. Overall, 10.4 percent of the total billed amount was left unresolved. When payment source was considered, it was found that self-pay patients accounted for 30.6 percent of the cases but accounted for 52.0 percent of the unresolved amounts. Further analysis indicated that the self-pay patients were 35.5 times more likely to leave an outstanding balance than individuals with some type of insurance coverage. Odds of unresolved balances were also calculated as a function of income, specialty type, practice size, and type of visit.

Adolescent

Evolution of a computerized support system for health care capacity planning.

This paper describes the evolution of a computerized support system for health care capacity planning within the Veterans Administration (VA) health care system. The VA's early attempts at computerization are described, along with the subsequent refinements made necessary by the deficiencies in those early attempts. The evolution of both the planning logic and the software configurations in set forth, along with some plans for future development.

Decision Support Systems, Management

Implementation of a model for census prediction and control.

A model is described that predicts hospital census and computes, for each day, the number of elective admissions that will maximize the census over the short run, subject to constraints on the probability of overflow. Where a computer is available the model provides detailed predictions of census in units as small as 10 beds; used with manual computation the model allows production of tables of the recommended numbers of elective admissions to the hospital as a whole. The model has been tested in five hospitals and is part of the admissions system in two of them; implementation is described, and the results obtained are discussed.

Computers

Computer content analysis of applied biological knowledge in dentistry.

The study suggests that the Inquirer II System used by computers in content analysis of (textual) specific written material has value for longitudinal studies. The research findings indicate that the application of the computer in content analysis requires considerable effort in the preparation of materials and specifications of directions to the computer; standardizes data analysis, thus reducing subjective error in replication of studies; reduced measurement error in longitudinal studies, giving greater stability and power to statistical comparison; classified data as it is collected, quickly and reliably, while tabulating statistical information; reduced costs compared to human coders when used with large amounts of data; and competes effectively with human coders in terms of reliability and validity.

Abstracting and Indexing