OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the economic burden of COPD in Malaysia, including direct costs for the management of COPD and indirect costs due to productivity losses for COPD patients.
METHODOLOGY: Overall, 150 patients with an established diagnosis of COPD were followed-up for a period of 1 year from August 2018 to August 2019. An activity-based costing, 'bottom-up' approach was used to calculate direct costs, while indirect costs of patients were assessed using the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire.
RESULTS: The mean annual per-patient direct cost for the management of COPD was calculated as US$506.92. The mean annual costs per patient in the management phase, emergency department visits, and hospital admissions were reported as US$395.65, US$86.4, and US$297.79, respectively; 31.66% of COPD patients visited the emergency department and 42.47% of COPD patients were admitted to the hospital due to exacerbation. The annual mean indirect cost per patient was calculated as US$1699.76. Productivity losses at the workplace were reported as 31.87% and activity limitations were reported as 17.42%.
CONCLUSION: Drugs and consumables costs were the main cost-driving factors in the management of COPD. The higher ratio of indirect cost to direct medical costs shows that therapeutic interventions aimed to prevent work productivity losses may reduce the economic burden of COPD.
Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted in the ED of the largest tertiary medical center in Taiwan. Trends of adult, non-trauma patients who visited the ED during February-April 2019 were compared with those during February-April 2020. The number of visits, their dispositions, crowding parameters, and turnover rates were analyzed. The primary outcome was the change in ED attendance between the two periods. The secondary outcomes were changes in hospital admission rates, crowding parameters, and turnover rates.
Results: During the outbreak, there were decreased non-trauma ED visits by 33.45% (p < 0.001) and proportion of Taiwan Triage and Acuity Scale (TTAS) 3 patients (p=0.02), with increased admission rates by 4.7% (p < 0.001). Crowding parameters and turnover rate showed significant improvements.
Conclusion: Comparison of periods before and during the COVID-19 outbreak showed an obvious decline in adult, non-trauma ED visits. The reduction in TTAS 3 patient visits and the increased hospital admission rates provide references for future public-health policy-making to optimise emergency medical resource allocations globally.
Methods: A completed clinical audit cycle was conducted in 2018 in the busy emergency department of a public hospital in Malaysia. Pre- and post-intervention antibiotic prescription data were collected, and changes were implemented through a multifaceted intervention similar to Thailand's Antibiotics Smart Use programme.
Results: Data from a total of 1,334 pre-intervention and 1,196 post-intervention patients were collected from the hospital's electronic medical records. The mean (SD) age of participants was 19.88 (17.994) years. The pre-intervention antibiotic prescription rate was 11.2% for acute diarrhoea and 29.1% for acute URI, both of which are above the average national rates. These antibiotic prescription rates significantly reduced post-intervention to 6.2% and 13.7%, respectively, falling below national averages. Antibiotic prescription rate was highest for young children. There were no significant changes in rates of re-attendance or hospital admission following the intervention.
Conclusion: The multifaceted intervention, which included continuing medical education, physician reminders and patient awareness, was effective in improving the antibiotic prescription rates for these two conditions.
METHODS: Fifty-one adult patients with suspected bacterial sepsis on admission to the Emergency Department (ED) of a teaching hospital were included into the study. All relevant cultures and serology tests were performed. Serum levels for Group II Secretory Phospholipase A2 (sPLA2-IIA) and CD64 were subsequently analyzed.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Sepsis was confirmed in 42 patients from a total of 51 recruited subjects. Twenty-one patients had culture-confirmed bacterial infections. Both biomarkers were shown to be good in distinguishing sepsis from non-sepsis groups. CD64 and sPLA2-IIA also demonstrated a strong correlation with early sepsis diagnosis in adults. The area under the curve (AUC) of both Receiver Operating Characteristic curves showed that sPLA2-IIA was better than CD64 (AUC = 0.93, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.83-0.97 and AUC = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.82-0.99, respectively). The optimum cutoff value was 2.13μg/l for sPLA2-IIA (sensitivity = 91%, specificity = 78%) and 45 antigen bound cell (abc) for CD64 (sensitivity = 81%, specificity = 89%). In diagnosing bacterial infections, sPLA2-IIA showed superiority over CD64 (AUC = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.85-0.96, and AUC = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.93-1.00, respectively). The optimum cutoff value for bacterial infection was 5.63μg/l for sPLA2-IIA (sensitivity = 94%, specificity = 94%) and 46abc for CD64 (sensitivity = 94%, specificity = 83%).
CONCLUSIONS: sPLA2-IIA showed superior performance in sepsis and bacterial infection diagnosis compared to CD64. sPLA2-IIA appears to be an excellent biomarker for sepsis screening and for diagnosing bacterial infections, whereas CD64 could be used for screening bacterial infections. Both biomarkers either alone or in combination with other markers may assist in decision making for early antimicrobial administration. We recommend incorporating sPLA2-IIA and CD64 into the diagnostic algorithm of sepsis in ED.
METHOD: A total of 3825 trauma patients from 2011 to 2016 were extracted from the Hospital Sultanah Aminah Trauma Surgery Registry. Patients were split into a development sample (n = 2683) and a validation sample (n = 1142). Univariate analysis is applied to identify significant anatomic predictors. These predictors were further analyzed using multivariable logistic regression to develop the new score and compared to existing score systems. The quality of prediction was determined regarding discrimination using sensitivity, specificity and receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve.
RESULTS: Existing simplified score systems (GAP & mGAP) revealed areas under the ROC curve of 0.825 and 0.806. The newly developed HeCLLiP (Head, cervical spine, lung, liver, pelvic fracture) score combines only five anatomic components: injury involving head, cervical spine, lung, liver and pelvic bone. The probabilities of mortality can be estimated by charting the total score points onto a graph chart or using the cut-off value of (>2) with a sensitivity of 79.2 and specificity of 70.6% on the validation dataset. The HeCLLiP score achieved comparable values of 0.802 for the area under the ROC curve in validation samples.
CONCLUSION: HeCLLiP Score is a simplified anatomic score suited to the local Malaysian population with a good predictive ability for trauma mortality.
AIM: The general objective of this study is to find out the description of community first responder in providing pre-hospital first aid to head injuries.
METHODS: This study uses qualitative descriptive method.
RESULTS: Most of the respondents have variety of educational backgrounds and do not have sufficient knowledge and skills to provide first aid. The average respondents provided help by performing initial assessment, managing effective airway and controlling bleeding. Limited pre-hospital facilities become one of the reasons for respondent not getting help so the efforts provided are not maximal. Respondents prefer to send patients directly to health facilities.
CONCLUSION: Regular education and training programs for the community first responders should be initiated so that the number of death and disability can be minimized.
METHODS: Prospective, mixed-methods process evaluation to answer the following: (1) how was the collaborative delivered by the faculty and received, understood and enacted by the participants; (2) what influenced teams' ability to improve care for patients requiring emergency cholecystectomy? We collected and analysed a range of data including field notes, ethnographic observations of meetings, and project documentation. Analysis was based on the framework approach, informed by Normalisation Process Theory, and involved the creation of comparative case studies based on hospital performance during the project.
RESULTS: Chole-QuIC was delivered as planned and was well received and understood by participants. Four hospitals were identified as highly successful, based upon a substantial increase in the number of patients having surgery in line with national guidance. Conversely, four hospitals were identified as challenged, achieving no significant improvement. The comparative analysis indicate that six inter-related influences appeared most associated with improvement: (1) achieving clarity of purpose amongst site leads and key stakeholders; (2) capacity to lead and effective project support; (3) ideas to action; (4) learning from own and others' experience; (5) creating additional capacity to do emergency cholecystectomies; and (6) coordinating/managing the patient pathway.
CONCLUSION: Collaborative-based quality improvement is a viable strategy for emergency surgery but success requires the deployment of effective clinical strategies in conjunction with improvement strategies. In particular, achieving clarity of purpose about proposed changes amongst key stakeholders was a vital precursor to improvement, enabling the creation of additional surgical capacity and new pathways to be implemented effectively. Protected time, testing ideas, and the ability to learn quickly from data and experience were associated with greater impact within this cohort.