Association of Maryland Global Budget Revenue With Spending and Outcomes Related to Surgical Care for Medicare Beneficiaries With Cancer.

Importance: In 2014, Maryland initiated the global budget revenue (GBR) model, placing caps on total hospital expenditures across all care sites. The GBR program aims to reduce unnecessary utilization while maintaining or improving care quality. To date, there has been limited examination of program effects on cancer care.

Maryland's Global Hospital Budgets--Preliminary Results from an All-Payer Model.

In the first year of Maryland's experiment in setting all-payer rates for hospital services, costs were contained and the quality of care improved, though the state still has high rates of hospital admissions and per capita spending for Medicare patients.

Effect of steroid and antibiotic treatment during assisted hatching on IVF outcomes.

There are limited data on the use of steroids and antibiotics in assisted reproductive technology (ART). Our aim was to evaluate the impact of these treatments on the outcome of IVF cycles in which Assisted Hatching (AH) was performed. We studied a retrospective cohort in a large university-affiliated infertility centre.

Can the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinic Outcome Reporting System (SART CORS) be used to accurately report clinic total reproductive potential (TRP)?

Objective: To assess whether total reproductive potential (TRP), the chance of a live birth from each fresh cycle (fresh cycle plus frozen transfers), could be calculated from the national Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology Clinic Outcome Reporting System (SART CORS) database and whether information not available in SART CORS resulted in significant changes to the TRP calculation.

Design: Retrospective study using SART CORS and clinic data.

Setting: Three assisted reproductive technology clinics.

Prognosis for clinical pregnancy and delivery after total fertilization failure during conventional in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Objective: To determine the prognosis for clinical pregnancy and delivery after total fertilization failure.

Design: Retrospective analysis of patient treatment cycles.

Setting: Private fertility clinic.

Evaluation of the effect of interleukin-6 and human extracellullar matrix on embryonic development.

Extracellular matrices and their associated growth factors can modulate the in-vitro growth of cells. In this study, the effects of culture substrata and the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) on embryonic development were investigated. In-vitro fertilized mouse oocytes were pooled and randomly distributed amongst treatment groups.

Use of Synthetic Serum Substitute and alpha-minimum essential medium for the extended culture of human embryos to the blastocyst stage.

This study was designed to provide further information on mouse and human embryo development in alpha-modified minimum essential medium (alphaMEM). First, we compared the development and implantation potential of murine in-vitro fertilized (IVF) embryos cultured in alphaMEM, in the presence and absence of co-culture cells. No significant difference was observed in blastocyst rate between alphaMEM alone (76.

Attitudes of in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination couples toward multiple gestation pregnancy and multifetal pregnancy reduction.

Objective: To determine attitudes regarding multiple pregnancy and multifetal pregnancy reduction in couples embarking on gonadotropin therapy.

Design: Questionnaire given to couples initiating gonadotropin therapy.

Setting: University hospital-based infertility unit.

Comparative analysis of motility characteristics of Percoll-selected spermatozoa populations from fresh and cryopreserved semen.

The proportion and quality of motility of spermatozoa in normozoospermic ejaculates were assessed using computer-assisted semen analysis. The ejaculate was split and the motility re-assessed following separation on a Percoll gradient with or without cryomedium and cryopreservation. Cryopreservation caused a significant decrease in the proportion of motile spermatozoa and in their velocity and amplitude of lateral head displacement.

Extracellular ATP and adenosine modulate tumor necrosis factor-induced lysis of L929 cells in the presence of actinomycin D.

Extracellular ATP in concentrations of 0.5 to 2.5 mM modulates TNF-induced cytolysis of L929 cells in the presence of actinomycin D.

Comparative efficiency of flagging and carbon dioxide-baited sticky traps for collecting the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum (Acarina: Ixodidae).

Collections of Amblyomma americanum (L.) from five habitat types showed that significantly more ticks of all life stages could be collected by CO2-baited sticky traps than by the standard flagging technique. The effect of habitat type and season significantly influenced the number of ticks collected by both techniques.

Why the conservatives gave us universal health care: a parable.

The provider and financing segments of health care are now in a "destabilization" phase, using Eli Ginsberg's perfectly descriptive term. Even with the lowest unemployment levels in years, the numbers of people who have no health insurance, most of them employed, keep going up. The health sector has been on a competitive binge that was supposed to contain cost increases, but aggregate expenditures for health care are rising on about the same curve as before.

Twelve laws of hospital interaction.

A strong case can be made for restructuring the health care delivery system using a vertically integrated model. The difficulties with such a voluntary effort surface with a review of 12 laws of hospital interaction.