Exploring performance profiles of home health care agencies: A two-stage analytical approach.

Background: Public reporting of home health care agencies' performance metrics, including patient satisfaction, care processes, and health outcomes, aims to inform customer decisions and encourage agencies to improve the quality of services. However, there is limited research that examines the heterogeneous performance of home health care agencies.

Purposes: The aim of this study was to analyze the performance of home health care agencies by identifying distinct subgroups of agencies with similar performance profiles and describing the relationships between agency characteristics and such subgroups.

Antegrade stent placement in laparoscopic upper urinary tract surgery. Is there an easy way?

Introduction: Antegrade placement of double J stents in laparoscopy is considered a challenging and time-consuming process due to limitations regarding stent flexibility.

Aim: To describe the method we used to facilitate the antegrade placement of intracorporeal stents in laparoscopic upper urinary tract (LUUT) surgery and report its results.

Material And Methods: Data obtained from 42 consecutive patients who had stents placed antegradely in laparoscopic pyeloplasty or in laparoscopic ureterolithotomy for middle-upper ureteral stones were retrospectively evaluated.