Utilisation of medical services in Germany and Europe - Results of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS 3, 2018 - 2020).

Background: Needs-based care is a central concern of healthcare policy. A European comparison of the utilisation of medical services can help to assess national data and identify the need for action.

Methods: This article describes indicators on the utilisation of outpatient and inpatient services, medical examinations and the use of medicines from the third wave of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS 3) and compares the results from Germany with the European averages.

Personalized perioperative blood pressure management in patients having major non-cardiac surgery: A bicentric pilot randomized trial.

Study Objective: We hypothesize that personalized perioperative blood pressure management maintaining intraoperative mean arterial pressure (MAP) above the preoperative mean nighttime MAP reduces perfusion-related organ injury compared to maintaining intraoperative MAP above 65 mmHg in patients having major non-cardiac surgery. Before testing this hypothesis in a large-scale trial, we performed this bicentric pilot trial to determine a) if performing preoperative automated nighttime blood pressure monitoring to calculate personalized intraoperative MAP targets is feasible; b) in what proportion of patients the preoperative mean nighttime MAP clinically meaningfully differs from a MAP of 65 mmHg; and c) if maintaining intraoperative MAP above the preoperative mean nighttime MAP is feasible in patients having major non-cardiac surgery.

Design: Bicentric pilot randomized trial.

Perception of pointing gestures in 3D space.

Pointing gestures are often used to refer to distant referents by indicating in which vertical and horizontal direction the referent is located relative to the pointer. In the present manuscript, we address whether and how both dimensions interact when people spatially interpret pointing gestures, or whether both dimensions are processed independently as reflected in many current models. We found that both dimensions interact on different levels.

Just visual context or part of the gesture? The role of arm orientation in bent pointing interpretation.

Pointing gestures can take on different shapes. For example, people often point with a bent wrist at a referent that is occluded by another object. We hypothesized that while the extrapolation of the index finger is the most important visual cue in such bent pointing gestures, arm orientation is affecting interpretations as well.