RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Variability of hospital resources for acute care of COPD patients: the European COPD Audit
JF European Respiratory Journal
JO Eur Respir J
FD European Respiratory Society
SP 754
OP 762
DO 10.1183/09031936.00074413
VO 43
IS 3
A1 Jose Luis López-Campos
A1 Sylvia Hartl
A1 Francisco Pozo-Rodriguez
A1 C. Michael Roberts
YR 2014
UL http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/43/3/754.abstract
AB Studies have suggested that larger hospitals have better resources and provide better care than smaller ones. This study aimed to explore the relationship between hospital size, resources, organisation of care and adherence to guidelines. The European COPD Audit was designed as a pilot study of clinical care and a survey of resources and organisation of care. Data were entered by clinicians to a multilingual web tool and analysed centrally. Participating hospitals were divided into tertiles on the basis of bed numbers and comparisons made of the resources, organisation of care and adherence to guidelines across the three size groups. 13 national societies provided data on 425 hospitals. The mean number of beds per tertile was 220 (lower), 479 (middle), and 989 (upper). Large hospitals were more likely to have resources and increased numbers of staff; hospital performance measures were related in a minority of indicators only. Adherence to guidelines also varied with hospital size, but the differences were small and inconsistent. There is a wide variation in the size, resources and organisation of care across Europe for hospitals providing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease care. While larger hospitals have more resources, this does not always equate to better accessibility or quality of care for patients. Although large hospitals are more likely to have more resources and staff, hospital performance does not differ greatly http://ow.ly/sfevS