Background: Inpatient falls are common hospital adverse events. We aimed to determine inpatient fall rates in an urban public hospital and analyzed their characteristics across clinical departments. Methods: The study was conducted in a 350-bed urban, multi-specialty public hospital in the 2013–2019 period. Patient data were retrieved from the hospital’s standardized falls reporting system. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests: chi2 and ANOVA tests with multiple comparison tests (post-hoc analysis) were used. For fall incidence estimation a joint-point regression was applied. p-value of 0.05 was considered as statistically significant for all the calculations. Results: The highest prevalence of falls was reported in the rehabilitation and internal medicine wards (1.915% and 1.181%, respectively), the lowest in the orthopedic (0.145%) and rheumatology wards (0.213%) (p < 0.001). The vast majority of falls took place in the late evening and during the night (56.711%) and were classified as bed falls (55.858%). The crude incidence rate (cIR) of falls was 6.484 per one thousand hospitalizations. In the 2013–2017 period, an increase in total cIR was observed, reaching the peak value in 2016; it was followed by a slight decline from 2017 to 2019, however, differences in changes were observed between the wards. Conclusion: Fall rates and trends as well as circumstances of inpatient falls varied significantly among clinical departments, probably due to differences in patient characteristics.
Background: Liver resections have become the first-line treatment for primary and metastatic tumors and, therefore, are considered a core aspect of surgical training. This study aims to evaluate the learning curve of the extent and safety of liver resection procedures for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Methods: This single tertiary center retrospective analysis includes 158 consecutive cases of small liver resection (SLR) (n = 107) and major liver resection (MLR) (n = 58) procedures. A cumulative sum control chart (CUSUM) method was used to investigate the learning curve. Results: The operative time, total blood loss level, and incidence of adverse effects showed a learning curve. For SLRs, the CUSUM curve for operative time and blood loss level peaked at the 19th and 17th case, respectively, while for MLRs, these curves peaked at the 28th and 24th case, respectively. The CUSUM curve for minor adverse effects (MAEs) and severe adverse effects (SAEs) showed a downward slope after the 16th and 68th procedures in the SLRs group and after the 29th and 39th procedures in the MLRs cohort; however, it remained within the acceptable range throughout the entire study. Conclusion: SLR procedures were performed faster with less intraoperative blood loss and shorter postoperative stays than MLRs, and a higher number of completed procedures was required to gain stabilization and repeatability in the operating time and intraoperative blood loss level. In MLR procedures, the reduction of SAEs was accomplished significantly later than the stabilization of the operative time and intraoperative blood loss level.
Background: Liver resections have become the first-line treatment for primary malignant tumors and, therefore, are considered a core aspect of surgical training. This study aims to evaluate the learning curve for the safety of open hemihepatectomy procedures for patients suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). Methods: This single tertiary center retrospective analysis includes 81 consecutive cases of right or left hemihepatectmy. A cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart was used to investigate the learning curve. Results: The CUSUM curve for operative time and blood loss level peaked at the 29th and 30th case, respectively. The CUSUM curve for minor adverse effects (mAEs) and severe adverse effects (sAEs) showed a downward slope after the 27th and 36th procedures; the curve, however, remained within the acceptable range throughout the entire study. Conclusion: When performing open hemihepatectomies in patients with HCC and ICC, the stabilization of the operative time and intraoperative blood loss level are gained earlier than sAEs risk reduction.