The increasing use of minimally invasive surgery in acute general surgical conditions: A decade of results from a national data set.

Background: To assess the rate of uptake of acute laparoscopic surgery for common general surgical conditions using national-level data.

Methods: The use of laparoscopic surgery in the acute management of appendicitis, cholecystitis, adhesive small bowel obstruction, and inguinal hernias was assessed between 2013 and 2022 at a national level in New Zealand.

Results: Laparoscopic appendicectomy increased from 83% to 95% (P = .

Economic costs of dysphagia among hospitalized patients.

Objectives/hypothesis: Difficulties swallowing may lead to aspiration pneumonia and death. In a hospital setting where patients are admitted for other causes, we hypothesized that the additional burden of a swallow problem would increase length of stay, rate of pneumonia, cost, readmissions, and morbidity compared to those without dysphagia.

Study Design: Retrospective parallel cohort study.

Feasibility and reliability of clinical coding surveillance for the routine monitoring of adverse drug events in New Zealand hospitals.

Aim: To explore the feasibility and reliability of Clinical Coding Surveillance (CCS) for the routine monitoring of Adverse Drug Events (ADE) and describe the characteristics of harm identified through this approach in a large district health board (DHB).

Method: All hospital admissions at Waitemata DHB from 2015 to 2016 with an ADE-related ICD10-AM code of Y40-Y59, X40-X49 or T36-T50 were extracted from clinical coded data. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics, statistical process control and Pareto charts.