Readmission rate as an indicator of hospital performance: the case of Spain.

Objectives: Hospital readmission rate is currently used as a quality of care indicator, although its validity has not been established. Our aims were to identify the frequency and characteristics of potential avoidable readmissions and to compare the assessment of quality of care derived from readmission rate with other measure of quality (judgment of experts).

Design: cross-sectional observational study;

Setting: acute care hospital located in Marbella, South of Spain;

Study Participants: random sample of patients readmitted at the hospital within six months from discharge (n = 363);

Interventions: review of clinical records by a pair of observers to assess the causes of readmissions and their potential avoidability;

Main Measures: logistic regression analysis to identify the variables from the databases of hospital discharges which are related to avoidability of readmissions.

[Quality of inpatient care and risk of early readmission in acute exacerbation of COPD].

Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is one of the diseases that causes more readmissions in our hospitals. The objective of our study was to establish the influence of quality of inpatient care on the risk of early readmission in the acute exacerbation of COPD.

Design: case and controls study.

[Analysis of the causes and potential avoidability of readmissions in an acute patients' hospital].

Background: Rates of hospital readmissions are used as indicators of quality of health care. Yet specific causes of readmissions have not been sufficiently studied and an unified definition of such an indicator is lacking. Our goal was to determine the causes and potential avoidability of readmissions in our hospital and to identify a suitable definition of this indicator.

[Severe acute gastroenteritis due to Aeromonas in a patient colectomized for Crohn's disease].

We report a case of severe acute diarrhoea produced by Aeromonas sobria, a specimen with controversial human pathogenicity. A 26-year-old man with Crohn's disease previously colectomized was admitted with a cholera-like clinical presentation and renal failure. Aeromonas sp.

Effect of cyclosporin on plasma lipoprotein lipase activity in rats.

The effects of cyclosporin on plasma lipoproteins and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity were studied in rats treated with different doses of the drug for periods ranging between 7 and 30 days. The treatment with cyclosporin resulted in an increase in plasma triglycerides and non-HDL-cholesterol, and a dose and time-dependent decrease of LPL activity and HDL-cholesterol, mainly because of a fall in the HDL2-cholesterol subfraction. The decrease of LPL activity was positively correlated (p < 0.