Process-based costing.

Understanding how quality improvement affects costs is important. Unfortunately, low-cost, reliable ways of measuring direct costs are scarce. This article builds on the principles of process improvement to develop a costing strategy that meets both criteria.

Urban-rural patterns of increasing antidepressant use among nursing facility residents.

Objective: To characterize changing patterns of antidepressant use in nursing facilities across the urban-rural continuum during the mid-1990s.

Design: Retrospective analysis of antidepressant drug codes and demographic/clinical data from the Minimum Data Set (MDS) 1994 to 1997.

Setting: Kansas nursing facilities.

Urban-rural differences in amitriptyline use among nursing facility residents.

Objective: To characterize patterns of amitriptyline use across the urban-rural continuum.

Design: Retrospective analysis of antidepressant drug codes and demographic and clinical data from the Minimum Data Set (MDS), 1994 to 1997.

Setting: Kansas nursing facilities.