ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Supportive care in oncology is a primary need for every oncology department nowadays. In 2012, in our institution, a dedicated supportive care service (SCS) was created in order to deal with any need our on-treatment patients might have (e.g. tumour-related or treatment-related symptoms). We hypothesized that this service had a positive impact on the number of unplanned hospitalizations; to confirm our hypothesis, we decided to review admission data in 2011 and 2012. METHODS: Using our internal software, we compared admission data in 2011 (that is, the year before the dedicated service was created) and 2012 (when such service began, that is April of that year). We also made an evaluation of the costs of these hospitalizations. RESULTS: Despite an increase of the number of patients treated in our day hospital (+6.5 %), the number of unplanned hospital admissions decreased by 3.2 % (from 17.3 to 14.1 %). The number of patients accessing to emergency room went from 66 to 61 % (a reduction of 5 %). The costs of these hospitalizations were reduced by 2.2 %. CONCLUSIONS: The introduction of the dedicated SCS in our oncology department caused a net reduction by 3.2 % of the number of unplanned hospitalizations of on-treatment cancer patients.
Subject(s)
Ambulatory Care Facilities/organization & administration , Delivery of Health Care, Integrated/organization & administration , Neoplasms/therapy , Palliative Care/organization & administration , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Ambulatory Care Facilities/economics , Ambulatory Care Facilities/statistics & numerical data , Costs and Cost Analysis , Delivery of Health Care, Integrated/economics , Delivery of Health Care, Integrated/methods , Delivery of Health Care, Integrated/statistics & numerical data , Emergency Service, Hospital/economics , Emergency Service, Hospital/statistics & numerical data , Female , Hospitalization/economics , Hospitalization/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Models, Theoretical , Outpatients/statistics & numerical data , Palliative Care/economics , Palliative Care/methods , Palliative Care/statistics & numerical data , Young AdultABSTRACT
We examined the antibacterial activities of several types of propolis, including Africanized honey bee green propolis and propolis produced by meliponini bees. The antibacterial activity of green propolis against Micrococcus luteus and Staphylococcus aureus was superior to that of Melipona quadrifasciata and Scaptotrigona sp propolis. Only two samples of propolis (green propolis and Scaptotrigona sp propolis) were efficient against Escherichia coli. Melipona quadrifasciata propolis was better than green propolis and Scaptotrigona sp propolis against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We concluded that these resins have potential for human and veterinary medicine.