Impact of stated barriers on proposed warfarin prescription for atrial fibrillation: a survey of Canadian physicians.

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiac arrhythmia, and leading cause of ischemic stroke. Despite proven effectiveness, warfarin remains an under-used treatment in atrial fibrillation patients. We sought to study, across three physician specialties, a range of factors that have been argued to have a disproportionate effect on treatment decisions.

Association between hospital intraoperative blood transfusion practices for surgical blood loss and hospital surgical mortality rates.

Objective: Blood loss during surgery is an important operative complication in patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery and may increase postoperative morbidity and mortality. Variations in the delivery of operative blood transfusions to treat blood loss depend not only on the patient and surgery characteristics but also on the hospital transfusion practices, and may explain differences in the hospitals' postoperative outcomes. We determine the relationship between hospital-level rates of intraoperative blood transfusion and 30-day mortality among older patients with significant intraoperative blood loss.