Modeling the costs of hospital-acquired infections in New Zealand.

Objective: To model the economic costs of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) in New Zealand, by type of HAI.

Design: Monte Carlo simulation model.

Setting: Auckland District Health Board Hospitals (DHBH), the largest publicly funded hospital group in New Zealand supplying secondary and tertiary services.

The prevalence and estimates of the cumulative incidence of hospital-acquired infections among patients admitted to Auckland District Health Board Hospitals in New Zealand.

Objectives: To report the pooled results of seven prevalence surveys of hospital-acquired infections conducted between November 1996 and November 1999, and to use the data to predict the cumulative incidence of hospital-acquired infections in the same patient group.

Design: The summary and modeling of data gathered from the routine surveillance of the point prevalence of hospital-acquired infections.

Setting: Auckland District Health Board Hospitals (Auckland DHBH), the largest publicly funded hospital group in New Zealand supplying secondary and tertiary services.

Short-term effects of sacral nerve stimulation for idiopathic slow transit constipation.

This study assessed the short-term clinical and physiological effect of continuous sacral nerve stimulation in patients with slow transit constipation. Some patients with idiopathic slow transit constipation are unresponsive to conservative treatments, while colectomy has a variable and poorly predictable outcome. Sacral nerve stimulation is a less invasive and reversible procedure that enables direct neuromodulation of the pelvic floor and hindgut.