Effects of Hospital Practice Patterns for Antibiotic Administration for Pneumonia on Hospital Lengths of Stay and Costs.

Background: Hospital practice patterns vary for switching from intravenous to oral antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia in pediatric patients, but it is unknown how these practice patterns affect hospital lengths of stay and costs.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 78673 pediatric patients (aged 3 months to 17 years) hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia. Analyses were performed with data from the Pediatric Health Information System between 2007 and 2016, including discharge data from 48 freestanding children's hospitals.

How should doctors disclose conflicts of interest to patients? A focus group investigation.

Disclosure is often proposed as a strategy for handling financial conflicts of interest in medicine. Yet there has been no guidance on how clinicians should disclose potential conflicts of interest to patients. To discern patients' attitudes toward conflicts of interest in medicine and their opinions about how physicians should disclose possible conflicts in the clinical setting, we conducted six focus groups with patients recruited from three clinics in the Twin Cities area.