Staff costs comprise the largest proportion of total costs at around 56%, followed by medication costs (including blood products, fluids, nutrition, drugs) at 18.7% (Table 3).
embedded subtle errors into the case, reflecting the five main categories of documented pathway errors (insulin, communication, intravenous fluids, nutrition, and discharge delay).
For example, intravenous fluids, nutrition (enteral and parental), fluid balance and medications (e.g. osmotic therapy) were not reliably captured in our data source and were therefore excluded from the analyses.
Errors in the 9 months before the intervention, as identified through an incident reporting system, were compared with those in the 10 months afterward, with errors classified as relating to insulin, communication, intravenous fluids, nutrition, and discharge delay.
The concept of direct costs was established considering clinical support services (pharmacy, physiotherapy, radiology and laboratory service), consumables (drugs, fluids, nutrition, blood and blood products), and staff (medical staff, technicians and nursing staff).
On the basis of previously occurring pathway errors, we hypothesized that nearly all errors would fall into one of five areas: insulin, communication, intravenous fluids, nutrition, and discharge delay.
The cost price of an IMC day was calculated from the costs of medical equipment (capacity costs), nursing staff, and consumable costs (drugs, fluids, nutrition, and disposables) divided by the total annual number of patient days in 2002 (n = 646 days in 8 months).
Other studies have suggested that embryos also drink the uterine fluid for nutrition, making the mother's watery secretions a live-in oxygenated milkshake for the growing baby.
Infants born in 2005 were not included to prevent a bias due to an adjustment period after the introduction of the new national fluid and nutrition guideline.
We performed a retrospective study to investigate whether the changes in fluid and nutrition policy had effect on (1) serum sodium and potassium levels and on (2) diuresis and changes in body weight in the first days after birth.
Our study also shows that the new fluid and nutrition guideline resulted in significant lower urine output and a decreased percentage of body weight loss in the first three days of life.
