Publications by authors named "Wai Fung Chong"
Objectives: This study aimed to determine if the risk of adverse outcomes (in-hospital and 60-day mortality, intensive care unit (ICU) and total hospital length of stay (LOS)) was greater for medical ICU (MICU) or high dependency unit (HDU) patients indirectly admitted from the emergency department (ED) than for directly admitted patients.
Setting: This study was conducted at a large public acute care hospital in Singapore.
Participants: In this retrospective cohort study, hospital records of patients who were admitted directly from the ED, or initially admitted to the general wards from the ED and subsequently transferred to the MICU/HDU within 24 h, were reviewed.
Background: Although acute geriatric units have improved the outcomes of hospitalized seniors, it is uncertain as to whether hospitalist care by geriatricians outside of these units confers similar benefit.
Objective: To determine whether hospitalist care by geriatricians reduces short-term mortality and readmission, and length of stay (LOS) for seniors aged 80 years and older with acute medical illnesses compared with care by other internists.
Design: Retrospective cohort study using administrative and chart review data on demographic, admission-related, and clinical information of hospital episodes.
Background: The study objective was to compare physical function documented in the medical records with interview data, and also to evaluate hospital mortality predictions using pre-admission and on-admission functional status derived from these two data sources.
Methods: A prospective cohort study of 1402 subjects aged 65 years and older to the general medicine department of an acute care hospital was conducted. Patient-reported pre-admission and on-admission functional status for impairment in any of the five activities of daily living (ADLs) items (feeding, dressing, grooming, toileting and bathing), transferring and walking, were compared with those extracted from the medical records.
Background And Objective: Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI) predicts mortality better than Confusion, Urea >7 mmol/L, Respiratory rate >30/min, low Blood pressure: diastolic blood pressure <60 mm Hg or systolic blood pressure <90 mm Hg, and age >65 years (CURB-65) for community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) but is more cumbersome. The objective was to determine whether CURB enhanced with a small number of additional variables can predict mortality with at least the same accuracy as PSI.
Methods: Retrospective review of medical records and administrative data of adults aged 55 years or older hospitalized for CAP over 1 year from three hospitals.
Aim: We sought to compare the effectiveness of acute geriatric units with usual medical care in reducing short-term mortality among seniors hospitalized for pneumonia in the real world.
Methods: In a retrospective cohort study, we merged chart and administrative data of seniors aged 65 years and older admitted to acute geriatric units and other medical units for pneumonia at three hospitals over 1 year. The outcome was 30-day mortality.
Background And Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the direct medical costs of COPD in two public health clusters in Singapore from 2005 to 2009.
Methods: Patients aged 40 years and over, who had been diagnosed with COPD, were identified in a Chronic Disease Management Data-mart. Annual utilization of health services in inpatient, specialist outpatient, emergency department and primary care settings was extracted from the Chronic Disease Management Data-mart.
Background: The use of comorbidities in risk adjustment for health outcomes research is frequently necessary to explain some of the observed variations. Medical charts reviews to obtain information on comorbidities is laborious. Increasingly, electronic health care databases have provided an alternative for health services researchers to obtain comorbidity information.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: This study determines the extent of, and factors associated with, delayed discharges for stroke patients from inpatient rehabilitation.
Materials And Methods: A retrospective cohort study utilising medical notes review was conducted at an inpatient rehabilitation centre in Singapore. Acute stroke patients (n = 487) admitted between March 2005 and December 2006 were studied.
Introduction: Common modalities of clinical exercise testing for outcome measurement after pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) include walk tests, progressive cycle ergometry, and cycle endurance testing. We hypothesized that patients' responses to PR, as measured by those 3 tests, are differentially correlated, and we designed a study to investigate the tests' capacity to detect changes after PR.
Methods: We prospectively tested 37 male patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who completed a comprehensive 6-week PR program that included supervised exercise training that emphasized steady-state lower-limb aerobic exercise.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of inhaled furosemide on the sensation of dyspnea produced during exercise in patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In a double-blind, randomized, crossover study we compared the effect of inhaled furosemide on dyspneic sensation during exercise testing with that of placebo. Spirometry and incremental and constant-load exercise testing were performed after inhalation of placebo or furosemide on 2 separate days in 19 patients with moderate or severe COPD.
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