Study on the inpatient care use since China′s new healthcare reform / 中华医院管理杂志

Objective:To analyze the reform actions on raising the appropriateness of inpatient care use, as well as the current situation, so as to provide suggestions on improving the appropriateness.Methods:Policies and literatures on the appropriateness of inpatient care use released from 2009 to 2021 were collected from such official websites as the State Council and China National Health Commission as well as literature databases from home and abroad, for a text analysis. Based on the data of China Health Statistics Yearbook(2010-2021) and The Sixth National Health Service Survey Report (2018), descriptive methods were adopted to analyze the situation of inpatient care use in China. Results:Since the new healthcare reform, the Chinese government had standardized the hospitalization standards and procedures to minimize inappropriate use of inpatient care, increased financial subsidies for public hospitals to minimize their inappropriate patient attraction merely for economic interests, and reformed the medical insurance payment methods so as to regulate physicians′ behavior. Under the influence of the above policies, the average length of stay decreased from 10.5 days in 2009 to 9.1 days in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of -1.42%. The average waiting time in hospitals decreased from 3.6 days in 2008 to 1.5 days in 2018.From 2012 to 2019, the admission rate increased from 13.2% to 19.0%.Conclusions:Since the new healthcare reform, the average length of stay in China has decreased year by year, but the admission rate has increased year by year. Therefore, it is necessary to further reduce the inappropriate utilization of inpatient care use by speeding up the construction of the close-type medical alliances, improving the reform of payment methods, refining the performance appraisal standards for medical staff and strengthening supervision mechanism.

Relationship between Admission and Clinical Features of Children who visited the Emergency Department with Seizures

PURPOSE: To review the seizure-related complaints and analyze the relationship between admission rates and clinical features in children who had visited the emergency department with seizures. METHODS: Retrospectively, we reviewed 180 patients(male 100, female 80) suffering from seizures, who had visited to the emergency department of Chosun University Hospital from January 2000 to June 2002. We have analyzed the correlation between admission rate and clinical features such as age, seizure type, seizure duration and individual laboratory findings(CT or MRI, and CSF). RESULTS: Out of 4,865 total children who visited the emergency department, 180 patients(3.7%) were seizure related. The most common seizure type was simple febrile seizure(52.2%). The admission rate of children with seizures was 48.9%. The admission rate according to age, sex and abnormal laboratory findings revealed no significant correlations(P>0.05). There was a significant correlation between admission and both status epilepticus 82.4%(14/17) and complex febrile seizure 63.6%(14/22) (P<0.05). According to the duration of convulsions, admission rates were 41.2% when within five minutes, 60% when six-15 minutes, 58.8% when 16-30 minutes, 85.7% when 30 minutes, to one hour and 66.7% when above one hour of duration. According to the seizure frequency, admission rates of recurrent seizure patients(61.4%=43/70) was higher compared to the first time seizure patients(40.9%=45/110). CONCLUSION: We found that the admission rate of children visiting the emergency department for seizure treatment was 48.9% and significantly correlated with duration, type and frequency of seizure.