Associations between two nursing workload scales and the cost of intensive care unit nursing staff: A retrospective study of one Belgian hospital.

Aims: The aim of this study was to assess associations between a general nursing funding scale and an intensive care unit specific nursing workload scale and the cost of nursing staff.

Background: Nurse staffing represents the most important cost in the intensive care unit, so it is essential to evaluate it accurately. In addition, the assessment of nursing workload is important for the daily management of the intensive care unit and to ensure quality of care.

Measuring the nursing workload in intensive care with the Nursing Activities Score (NAS): A prospective study in 16 hospitals in Belgium.

Purpose: The evaluation of nursing workload is a common practice in intensive care units (ICUs). It allows the calculation of an optimal nurse/patient ratio (N/P) which is a major challenge to ensuring the quality of care while controlling the costs of health care. The objectives of this study were, therefore, to evaluate the N/P ratio and to study nursing activities in intensive care in French-speaking Belgium.

[Medical and economic evaluation of oncological inpatients in 14 Belgian hospitals].

Introduction: A prospective payment system per DRG is announced in Belgium. Is this kind of financing system adequate for oncology? Objectives of this study are: to analyze medical and economical characteristics of oncological inpatients and evaluate the homogeneity of costs and length of stay per DRG.

Methods: The study was realized in 14 Belgian hospitals, with 2010 data.

Predictors of costs from the hospital perspective of primary pulmonary embolism.

The objective of this study was to estimate the total hospital cost per patient admitted through the emergency department with a primary diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE), and to identify the main components and predictors of costs.Actual costs of care of 652 consecutive patients hospitalised in 10 general hospitals in Belgium, including 31 outlier patients in terms of length of stay (4.8%), were obtained by aggregating all cost components contributing to care of each patient.

[Cost evaluation of hospital inpatient stays induced by injuries due to falls for elderly people].

Thirty percent of people aged 65 and older, living at home fall at least once a year. Few economic data are available in Belgium on this issue. We evaluated the cost borne by social security.

Epidemiology of injuries in Belgium: contribution of hospital data for surveillance.

Objectives: Investigating injuries in terms of occurrences and patient and hospital stay characteristics.

Methods: 17370 stays, with at least one E code, were investigated based on data from 13 Belgian hospitals. Pearson's chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to assess the variations between distributions of the investigated factors according to the injury's types.

Evaluation of the cost of atrial fibrillation during emergency hospitalization.

Objective: The number of hospitalizations for atrial fibrillation has increased dramatically. This increase, in the number of hospital stays will continue, given the growth projections based on epidemiological data, and will contribute to significantly increase expenses for the social security system.The objective of this study was to evaluate the length of hospital stay, the average cost borne by social security, and the types of hospital stay expenditures for patients admitted through the emergency department for atrial fibrillation.

Variability of nursing care by APR-DRG and by severity of illness in a sample of nine Belgian hospitals.

Background: As soon as Diagnosis related Groups (DRG) were introduced in many hospital financing systems, most nursing research revealed that DRG were not very homogeneous with regard to nursing care. However, few studies are based on All Patient refined Diagnosis related Groups (APR-DRGs) and few of them use recent data. Objectives of this study are: (1) to evaluate if nursing activity is homogeneous by APR-DRG and by severity of illness (SOI) (2) to evaluate the outlier's rate associated with the nursing activity and (3) to compare nursing cost homogeneity per DRG and SOI.