SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “availability”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 649 records · Page 36Linked to original sources

PubMed2006

[Availability of physicians in Chile at the year 2004].

BACKGROUND: The number of physicians available in a given country, their efficiency, quality and specialization is of utmost epidemiological importance. AIM: To evaluate the availability of physicians in Chile. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The information about the number of physicians in Chile up to the year 2004, was obtained from the Ministry of Health, national universities and the register of immigrant physicians since 1950. RESULTS: The total number of physicians licensed to practice was 25,542, of whom 2,700 are immigrants. The physician/inhabitant ratio increased from 1/921 in 1998 to 1/612 in 2004. The greater impact in the increment of available physicians was given by the immigration of professionals and by the increase in the number of physicians graduated from national universities, mainly from the new private universities. Forty two percent of physicians work at public services and 61% of these are certified specialists. The regional distribution of general practitioners and basic specialists is adequate. Along the country, the mean physician/beneficiary ratio is 8.45/10,000, the specialist/beneficiary ratio is 4.9/10,000 and the general practitioner/beneficiary ratio is 2.3/10,000. CONCLUSIONS: The national information of available physicians, especially in the private sector, should be improved. Immigration of physicians should be regulated, maintaining validation examinations and a National Medical Test to assess medical proficiency should be instituted.

Certification↗

PubMed1991

The use of health service areas for measuring provider availability.

Measurement of the availability of health care providers in a geographic area is a useful component in assessing access to health care. One of the problems associated with the county provider-to-population ratio as a measure of availability is that patients frequently travel outside their counties of residence for health care, especially those residing in nonmetropolitan counties. Thus, in measuring the number of providers per capita, it is important that the geographic unit of analysis be a health service area. We have defined health care service areas for the coterminous United States, based on 1988 Medicare data on travel patterns between counties for routine hospital care. We used hierarchical cluster analysis to group counties into 802 service areas. More than one half of the service areas include only nonmetropolitan counties. The service areas vary substantially in the availability of health care resources as measured by physicians and hospital beds per 100,000 population. For almost all of the service areas, the majority of hospital stays by area residents occur within the service area. In contrast, for 39 percent of counties, the majority of hospital stays by county residents occur outside the county. Thus, the service areas are a more appropriate geographic unit than the county for measuring the availability of health care.

Catchment Area, Health↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Local pulsatile intramyocardial pressure (IMP) as a vector force: simultaneous measurements of IMP and tissue oxygen availability.

A directional nonuniformity of the intramyocardial pressure (IMP) was observed in anesthetized open-chest dogs using a piezoelectric pressure sensor implanted in the left ventricular myocardium. The nonuniformity seemed to be attributable to the variation in myocardial fiber orientation. The IMP, which developed in a direction parallel to the base-apex line, was measured in the deep portion of the myocardium, simultaneously with local O2 availability. In some cases, IMP decreased quickly as soon as a decrement in O2 availability had proceeded only slightly as a result of ligation of the anterior descending artery (LAD). In other cases, the once decreased IMP recovered gradually even when O2 availability remained lowered by continuation of the ligation. These observations indicated that IMP had no direct dependency on O2 availability in the case of acute LAD.

Animals↗

PubMed1999

The availability of activated charcoal and ipecac for home use.

Traditionally, ipecac has been used in the home; however, recently attention has focused on pre-hospital activated charcoal (AC) administration. In an effort to assess the availability of AC and ipecac, we conducted a telephone survey. One-hundred and 18 pharmacies were randomly selected from the 59 counties in California to assess availability of AC (liquid or powder) and/or ipecac. Ninety-four (80%) pharmacies participated. Seventy-nine of the pharmacies had ipecac compared to 8 which had AC. Three pharmacies had pre-mixed aqueous AC while 5 had AC in powder formulation. There was no difference between chains and community in AC or ipecac availability. The major limitations of effective GI decontamination are AC availability and rapidity in its administration. Our results identify a significant delay in the administration of AC if a parent was referred to a local pharmacy for home or pre-hospital decontamination. As more toxicologists and poison centers move towards pre-hospital and home AC much education of pharmacists as well as pediatricians and parents is required.

Charcoal↗

PubMed2000

Analysis of the availability and completeness of previous radiological examinations related to plain films.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the availability and completeness of previous radiological examinations. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seven different types of examinations were analysed separately: 1) chest examinations, 2) bedside chest examinations, 3) skeletal examinations, 4) angiographic examinations, 5) mammographic examinations, 6) CT examinations, and 7) MR examinations. A retrospective part of the study covered the calendar year 1997, while a prospective part referred to 1998. The sample size in each modality and each part of the study was 100 observations, resulting in a total number of 1,400 examinations. RESULTS: The average availability and completeness of radiographs in the retrospective analysis was 96.9% in 1997. The average availability and completeness of radiographs in the prospective analysis was 85.5% for the year 1998. This applied to necessary previous examinations of the same or different modality irrespective whether the examination was conducted internally or externally. CONCLUSION: The real loss rate of radiographs derived from the retrospective investigation was 3.1%. The prospective part of the study showed that 14.5% of the required previous internal and external examinations of the same or different modality were not available completely and in time to the examining radiologist.

Humans↗

PubMed2000

Local option policies and alcohol availability in North Carolina counties.

Concerned about social problems related to alcohol, communities are considering legal alternatives for restricting its availability. Whether restrictive local policies are realistic means for curtailing the physical availability of alcohol is unknown. Using North Carolina's 100 counties as the unit of analysis, the extent to which 1994 local option policies predicted 1995 rates of alcohol permits, controlling for other factors related to the demand for alcohol, was examined. Counties with restrictive policies were found to have lower rates of alcohol permits than counties with permissive policies, after accounting for alcohol demand. Local option policies may be a reasonable strategy for limiting the physical availability of alcohol. In turn, limiting alcohol availability may be effective in reducing alcohol-related community problems such as traffic crashes and violent assaults.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed1999

Product availability for pediatric parenteral nutrition.

Availability of parenteral nutrition (PN) products for use in pediatric patients is an important factor for popularity of PN in developing countries like India. The overall cost of PN supplementation in the adult patient works out to be approximately Rs. 2000 per day. It should be more cost effective in a child, working out to Rs. 750 per day on an average. However, it is not so because smaller bags of 100 ml capacity designed for pediatric use are not so readily available. The article provides detailed information regarding presently available PN products in Indian markets. All-in-one PN bags of 100 ml capacity (containing amino acids, lipids and dextrose), designed for use in adult patients, would not be cost effective for use in children. Opinions regarding PN mixing are divided and most of the practitioners in the developed countries do not favour mixing because higher concentrations of lipids and dextrose in the solution can cause metabolic derangements in the patients. In view of the problems related to availability of PN products, mixing PN solution may be ideal for India, if calorie content of the infusate is kept at a level just enough to sustain life but not high enough to cause metabolic disturbances.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Choice between cocaine and food by rhesus monkeys: effects of conditions of food availability.

The present experiment was designed to examine the effects of the conditions of food availability on choice between cocaine and food in rhesus monkeys. Monkeys (n = 3), maintained at approximately 90% of their free-feeding weights, were trained in a discrete-trials choice procedure and allowed to choose between intravenous injections of cocaine (0.03-1.0mg/kg/injection) and food delivery (4 pellets; 1g/pellet) during daily 7-h sessions. When food was available both within the session and by supplemental post-session feeding, the frequency of cocaine choice increased in a dose-related manner for all monkeys. When supplemental post-session feeding was eliminated (i.e. food was only available within the session) the cocaine dose-response function was shifted to the right and down relative to that found initially. However, changes in the frequency of cocaine choice did not vary consistently with changes in body weight. Thus, these results suggest that the reinforcing efficacy of cocaine can be modified by changing the conditions of availability of an alternative non-drug reinforcer.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2001

Alternative filler materials and new implant designs: what's available and what's on the horizon?

Despite ample evidence that silicone gel-filled implants do not cause systemic illness, they are still not available in the United States for widespread use. At this point, saline-filled implants are widely available for use, and assuming favorable outcomes of the relevant silicone studies, some forms of silicone gel-filled implants could be approved by the FDA and be available as soon as 2003. Other products under preliminary consideration by the FDA for eventual studies include the 150 series and the cohesive silicone gel-filled 410 series by McGhan, and the NovaGold implant by NovaMed. Assuming favorable study results, one or more could be approved by the FDA by the year 2004. Any products not yet submitted to the FDA for review of study designs by this time are not likely to be available in the United States in the next 4 or 5 years.

Breast Implants↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[In vitro availability of minerals in infant foods with different protein source].

As the result of the digestion process, it is produced at gastrointestinal level interactions between proteins-minerals and minerals-minerals that might modify the bioavailability of the nutrients initially designed for an adequate nutrition in infant formulas. The aim of the present study is to compare the in vitro availability of some minerals and trace elements (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron and zinc) in infant formulas of initiation elaborated with different protein sources: formulas based on cow milk protein (whey-casein) versus vegetal protein (soy-based infant formulas). Also, for evaluating the effects of the different mineral supplementation in the availability of minerals, it was used infant formulas from two different manufacturers. Milk-protein based infant formulas showed for both manufacturers higher dialysis percentage (%) of phosphorus and zinc than the soy-protein based formulas. The availability of iron in the soy formula of the manufacturer A lowered significantly (P < 0.05) respect to the whey-casein based formula (9.6 +/- 2.3 versus 4.6 +/- 0.8), but not respect to the whey-casein formula of manufacturer B (9.6 +/- 1.1 versus 9.0 +/- 0.7), which might be due to the lowest proportion of phytic acid in this last commercial formula. Dialysability of all the minerals analysed from soy-protein based formulas showed significant differences depending on the manufacturer. The purification processes of the soy protein have a high repercussion in the mineral availability of soy-based infant formulas. It could be more interesting to use soy proteins more purified, with low level of phytic acid, in the elaboration of soy infants formulas, than the supplementation them with high amounts of minerals.

Dietary Proteins↗

PubMed2001

Methodological issues using household budget survey expenditure data for individual food availability estimation: Irish experience in the DAFNE pan-European project. DAta Food NEtworking.

OBJECTIVE: Irish participation in the EU-supported DAta Food NEtworking (DAFNE) project required compliance with the overall aims and objectives. The Irish Household Budget Survey (HBS) expenditure data had to be transformed into a format compatible with the collaborative effort, by converting them into quantities of foodstuffs available per person per day. SETTING: The Irish 1987 HBS expenditure data on all commodities for 7705 households in the Republic of Ireland, collected using a 14-day diary kept by all members of the household aged 15 years and over. DESIGN: Following identification of 188 food items in the HBS dataset, retail prices per unit weight were sought for each food. Adjustment of prices, collected from a number of different sources, was made to those of 1987 using the Consumer Price Index. Simple models were used to estimate household food availability through application of the adjusted retail prices per unit weight to the expenditure data. The household level data were converted to food availability per person per day. An internal validation of quantities estimated using the retail prices was made using the 12 foodstuffs for which the Irish HBS collects expenses and quantities. RESULTS: The comparison of quantities published by the Irish Central Statistics Office for 12 foodstuffs in the Irish 1987 Household Budget Survey with the quantities estimated using equivalent expenditure data and corresponding retail prices showed agreement, with less than a 10% margin of error for 10 of the foods. CONCLUSION: In spite some difficulty in converting HBS food expenditure data into food availability per person per day, the DAFNE approach is potentially useful for Irish nutrition surveillance purposes and for facilitating comparisons of the Irish HBS food data with those of other European countries.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Predicting methanol clearance during hemodialysis when direct measurement is not available.

The appropriate treatment of a patient with methanol intoxication includes the use of a competitive inhibitor of alcohol dehydrogenase (ethanol, p.o. or i.v., or fomepizole) to prevent the metabolism of methanol to formaldehyde and formic acid. Where available, dialysis can be added to this therapy, since methanol is cleared well by hemodialysis. The ability to predict the time course of methanol elimination in any given patient is an essential factor in planning his or her care. Where the availability of ethanol, bicarbonate, nursing time, or dialysis machines is limited, such predictions can be used to allocate these resources quite accurately within a couple of hours of starting treatment. Even when direct measurement of methanol by gas chromatography is not readily available, its level can be estimated indirectly by a quick and easy method, using available laboratory values. The length of time necessary to clear the methanol below a toxic level can be predicted accurately. Careful interpretation of laboratory values can result in early treatment, correct treatment time, and a positive patient outcome.

Central Nervous System Depressants↗

PubMed2002

Firearm availability and female homicide victimization rates among 25 populous high-income countries.

OBJECTIVE: to determine the association between firearm availability and female homicide victimization among high-income countries. METHODS: Data were assembled for the most recent available year (1994-1999) from the official reports of the ministries of health for those countries that had more than 2 million inhabitants and were dassified as high income by the World Bank. Twenty-five nations provided sufficient information for the analysis. Rates of female victimization from homicide, firearm homicide, and nonfirearm homicide were compared with a validated proxy for household firearm ownership (the percentage of total national suicides that are committed with firearms). Possible confounding variables included in the analysis were the percentage of the population living in urban areas and income inequality. RESULTS: The United States is an outlier. It had the highest level of household firearm ownership and the highest female homicide rate. The United States accounted for 32% of the female population in these high-income countries, but for 70% of all female homicides and 84% of all female firearm homicides. Female homicide victimization rates were significantly associated with firearm availability largely because of the United States. CONCLUSION: Among high-income countries, where firearms are more available, more women are homicide victims. Women in the United States are at higher risk of homicide victimization than are women in any other high-income country.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Resource availability for care of hypertensives at primary health settings in Southwestern Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the availability of resources required for hypertension care at primary health care centers in Aseer region, Southwestern Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This study was carried out at primary health care settings in Aseer region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), during during September 2001 by distributing a questionnaire to all the technical directors of primary health care centers (PHCCs) in Aseer region, KSA. The questionnaire composed of 4 main parts that dealt with profile of these PHCCs and the degree of availability of the essential resources for care of hypertension. Data of the questionnaire was entered and analyzed by using statistical package for social sciences. RESULTS: Ninety-nine percent of PHCCs responded to the questionnaire. The total served population was more than 970,000. The total registered hypertensive patient was 13087 patients. Seventy-five percent of PHCCs have chronic diseases mini-clinics, 90% have appointment system and management protocol for hypertension. Availability of health education materials, diagnostic tools and antihypertensive drugs ranged from 10-81.4%. CONCLUSION: This study found that many essential resources for hypertension care were not adequately available. Urgent provision of these items is considered a priority in order to introduce good health care for hypertensive patients in Aseer region, KSA.

Health Care Surveys↗

PubMed1992

Detection of PF3 availability in whole blood from volunteers and beta-thalassemia/HbE patients: a promising method for prediction of thrombotic tendency.

The platelet factor 3 (PF 3) plays a very important role in activation of coagulation factors and is regarded to be available during activation of platelets. However, membrane fraction of erythrocytes is also shown to have PF 3-like activity, suggesting that the abnormal erythrocytes may accelerate the activation of platelet by forming thrombin on their abnormal membrane or by way of other factors of the abnormal erythrocytes, and may increase the availability of PF 3 in whole blood (WB). To examine this hypothesis, we developed a method for determination of PF 3 activity, because the method now available for the PF3 determination could not detect changes in PF 3 activity with time. The principles of our method were as follows: 1) The reaction system was adjusted so that the amount of thrombin generated in a fixed reaction time correlates with the amount of PF 3. 2) To avoid inhibition of thrombin activity by antithrombin III, a synthetic thrombin inhibitor, MD 805, was added to the system and the activity of thrombin generated was measured by synthetic thrombin substrate S-2238 using A405 as an indicator of the availability of PF3. The results obtained by the method were the following: WB taken from volunteers showed A405 of 0.12 +/- 0.02 at 30 minutes after blood collection and then the A405 increased to 0.27 +/- 0.03 at 90 minutes. However, one volunteer showed the value of 0.59 at 90 minutes, though the value at 30 minutes was 0.16. The platelet number in his WB did not change during the study.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

[Assessment of the quality of information on departments/divisions of anesthesiology available on the World Wide Web].

BACKGROUND: The quality of health information available in the World Wide Web is an important issue, but no review of the quality of such information has been performed. METHODS: We investigated the quality of information available on the World Wide Web regarding departments/divisions of anesthesiology in 82 specific functioned hospitals in Japan. RESULTS: Eighty-eight percent of the hospitals have their own web site for anesthesiology. Although only general clinical information was available on 64-71% of the web sites, detailed information on clinical results and members having diploma of the board was available on 11-26% of the sites. Regarding education, only 4% of the sites provided information on contents of lectures, whereas 75% of the sites have pages for medical students. CONCLUSIONS: Departments/divisions of anesthesiology, especially in specific functioned hospitals, should recognize an important role of web pages for medical consumers (= e-patient) and renew their web sites appropriately and opportunely.

Advertising↗

PubMed2005

Increased dopamine transporter availability associated with the 9-repeat allele of the SLC6A3 gene.

UNLABELLED: A polymorphism involving a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) has been described in the 3' untranslated region of the gene (SLC6A3) coding for the dopamine transporter (DAT). This polymorphism has 2 common alleles, designated as 10-repeat (*10R) and 9-repeat (*9R), that have been linked with several human clinical phenotypes. Previous investigations of the effects of the SLC6A3 polymorphism on DAT availability in smaller samples of humans have yielded divergent results. METHODS: We assessed genotype at the SLC6A3 promoter VNTR polymorphism in 96 healthy European Americans (age range, 18-88 y) who also underwent SPECT with (123)I-2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane (beta-CIT) for measurement of striatal DAT protein availability. A ratio of specific to nondisplaceable brain uptake (i.e., V(3)'' = [striatal -occipital]/occipital), a measure proportional to the binding potential, was derived. For this analysis, 9-9 homozygotes and 9-10 heterozygotes were grouped as SLC6A3 *9R carriers and contrasted with SLC6A3 *10R homozygotes. RESULTS: The SLC6A3 *9R carriers had significantly higher striatal DAT availability (V(3)'') than did the SLC6A3 *10R homozygotes, controlling for age (F(1,93) = 6.25, P = 0.014, analysis of covariance). The *9R carriers (n = 41, 49.8 +/- 19.5 y) had a mean increase in striatal DAT availability of 8.9% relative to the *10R homozygotes (n = 53, 49.9 +/- 19.2 y). Striatal subregion analysis revealed that the effect of DAT genotype was significant for both the caudate and the putamen. CONCLUSION: These results support the interpretation of higher DAT levels in association with the *9R allele in European Americans and may relate to previously observed associations between DAT genotype and neuropsychiatric diseases.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

[Pneumococcal vaccination; arguments for informing parents about the options available].

Invasive pneumococcal disease in childhood causes meningitis, sepsis and pneumonia. Current pneumococcal vaccines are estimated to prevent 50% of Dutch pneumococcal meningitis and 40% of pneumococcal sepsis. In 2001, the Health Council of The Netherlands emphasised the importance of universal pneumococcal vaccination of small children. However, the Dutch Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports stated that the vaccine is too expensive for the national vaccination programme (NVP). Child health clinics do not educate parents about vaccines that are not available in the NVP, and therefore parents are not informed about the availability of an effective pneumococcal vaccine. We argue that child health clinic physicians should inform parents about the limitations of the NVP in order to put expectations about the programme into perspective. Educating parents that the NVP is very worthwhile but does not include every possible or available vaccine will strengthen confidence in the NVP. Parents who then want to know which effective vaccines are available should be provided with the information they request. In view of the Health Council recommendations, the pneumococcal vaccine should then be specifically mentioned.

Child↗