Development of unit cost for the health services offered at King FAHD Central hospital Jazan, Saudi Arabia

Background: Efficiency remains one of the most important drivers of decision making in health care system. Fund allocators need to receive structured information about the cost healthcare services from hospitals for better decisions related to resource allocation and budgeting. The objective of the study was to estimate the unit cost for health services offered to inpatients in King Fahd Central hospital (KFCH) Jazan during the financial year 2018. Methods: We applied a retrospective approach using a top-down costing method to estimate the cost of health care services. Clinical and Administrative departments divided into cost centres, and the unit cost was calculated by dividing the total cost of final care cost centres into the total number of patients discharged in one year. The average cost of inpatient services was calculated based on the average cost of each ward and the number of patients treated. Results: The average cost per patient stayed in KFCH was SAR 19,034, with the highest cost of SAR 108,561 for patients in the Orthopedic ward. The average cost of the patient in the Surgery ward, Plastic surgery, Neurosurgery, Medical ward, Pediatric ward and Gynecology ward was SAR 33,033, SAR 29,425, SAR 23,444, SAR 20,450, SAR 9579 and SAR 8636 respectively. Conclusion: This study provides necessary information about the cost of health care services in a tertiary care setting. This information can be used as a primary tool and reference for further studies in other regions of the country. Hence, this data can help to provide a better understanding of tertiary hospital costing in the region to achieve the privatization objective

Development of unit cost for the health services offered at King FAHD Central hospital Jazan, Saudi Arabia

Background: Efficiency remains one of the most important drivers of decision making in health care system. Fund allocators need to receive structured information about the cost healthcare services from hospitals for better decisions related to resource allocation and budgeting. The objective of the study was to estimate the unit cost for health services offered to inpatients in King Fahd Central hospital (KFCH) Jazan during the financial year 2018. Methods: We applied a retrospective approach using a top-down costing method to estimate the cost of health care services. Clinical and Administrative departments divided into cost centres, and the unit cost was calculated by dividing the total cost of final care cost centres into the total number of patients discharged in one year. The average cost of inpatient services was calculated based on the average cost of each ward and the number of patients treated. Results: The average cost per patient stayed in KFCH was SAR 19,034, with the highest cost of SAR 108,561 for patients in the Orthopedic ward. The average cost of the patient in the Surgery ward, Plastic surgery, Neurosurgery, Medical ward, Pediatric ward and Gynecology ward was SAR 33,033, SAR 29,425, SAR 23,444, SAR 20,450, SAR 9579 and SAR 8636 respectively. Conclusion: This study provides necessary information about the cost of health care services in a tertiary care setting. This information can be used as a primary tool and reference for further studies in other regions of the country. Hence, this data can help to provide a better understanding of tertiary hospital costing in the region to achieve the privatization objective

Glaucoma Care Plan and Role of Social Service, Health Informatics, Nurses Together with the Ophthalmology Team and their Impact on Patient

The condition known as glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness that cannot be reversed. If the necessary diagnostic testing and therapy are administered, glaucomatous visual loss can be avoided through prevention. In order to ensure that glaucoma diagnosis and treatment are successful, ophthalmic nurses play a significant role throughout the process. Through the use of adequate theoretical knowledge and practical training, this service evaluation reveals how nurse practitioners, social service workers, and health informaticists can gain the skills necessary to achieve a high level of agreement in patient assessment and care for patients who are suspected of having glaucoma

Intramolecularly folded G-quadruplex and i-motif structures in the proximal promoter of the vascular endothelial growth factor gene

A polyguanine/polycytosine (polyG/polyC) tract in the proximal promoter of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene is essential for transcriptional activation. The guanine-rich (G-rich) and cytosine-rich (C-rich) strands on this tract are shown to form specific secondary structures, characterized as G-quadruplexes and i-motifs, respectively. Mutational analysis of the G-rich strand combined with dimethyl sulfate (DMS) footprinting, a polymerase stop assay, and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy revealed that the G-quadruplex containing a 1:4:1 double-chain reversal loop is the most thermodynamically stable conformation that this strand readily adopts. These studies provide strong evidence that the size of loop regions plays a critical role in determining the most favored folding pattern of a G-quadruplex. The secondary structure formed on the complementary C-rich strand was also determined by mutational analysis combined with Br2 footprinting and CD spectroscopy. Our results reveal that at a pH of 5.9 this strand is able to form an intramolecular i-motif structure that involves six C–C+ base pairs and a 2:3:2 loop configuration. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the G-quadruplex and i-motif structures are able to form on the G- and C-rich strands, respectively, of the polyG/polyC tract in the VEGF proximal promoter under conditions that favor the transition from B-DNA to non-B-DNA conformations

Slowly progressive distal muscle weakness: neuropathy or myopathy?

Nonaka myopathy is an autosomal recessive and slowly progressive distal myopathy. It is part of a rare group of myopathies predominantly affecting the distal limb musculature. Over 150 cases have been reported across the Middle East, Japan and Europe. We report the case of a 33-year-old woman presenting with symmetrical upper and lower limb weakness, most severely affecting the distal muscle groups. After extensive neurological investigation including neurophysiology, muscle biopsy and genetic analysis, she was finally diagnosed with Nonaka myopathy and treated conservatively with physiotherapy

Beamforming with artificial noise for secure MISOME cognitive radio transmissions

In this paper, we consider multiple-input single-output multi-eavesdropper cognitive radio networks (MISOME-CRNs), where a secondary user (SU) aims to transmit confidential information to a legitimate SU receiver in the presence of a primary user (PU) and a multi-antenna passive eavesdropper in fast fading environments. For this system setting, we study beamforming with artificial noise (AN) for the SU to achieve confidential communications. We consider designing an AN-assisted optimal beamforming scheme, denoted cognitive beamforming (CB), which maximizes the ergodic secrecy rate. Moreover, we propose two suboptimal beamforming schemes, namely, scaled beamforming (SB) and projected beamforming (PB). We develop an analytical framework to assess the performance of the proposed schemes in a unified manner. First, we analyze the achievable ergodic secrecy rate of the three schemes. Second, we derive the optimal power allocation for the information and AN signals that maximizes the achievable ergodic secrecy rate in the large-antenna regime. Third, we study the performance of the three schemes in terms of the secrecy outage probability. Using numerical simulations, we validate our analytical results and show that CB achieves the best performance among the three proposed schemes. In addition, we provide insights into the effect of various system parameters on the secrecy performance. In particular, we show that the interference threshold at the PU plays an important role in the beamforming design

Religiosity and subjective well-being towards a balanced civilization: A study among muslim older adults in Malaysia

The aim of the conceptual paper is to shed more light on the significant of religiosity as a psychosocial determinant of elderly subjective well-being, and its role of as a resource copping strategy, social support, and meaning to life experience. This paper draws on the observation of other scholars in the relationship of religion to health, happiness and well-being research. The deductive and exploratory approach was used to select, analyze and summarize the related literature. The literature indicates that religiosity is associated with elderly people life satisfaction, happiness, and self-esteem. Religious affiliation buffers negative effects of stress on physical health; Prayer buffers the effects of stress on depressive. The paper reviewed the literature on both concepts of well-being and religiosity from Malaysian context. Highlighting the issue of the increase in population of people aged 60 and above, who will need an extra care. © 2019, Academy of Islamic Studies, Dept of Islamic History and Civilization, University of Malaya. All rights reserved

Intrapersonal and interpersonal factors influencing physical activity in Arab Americans: a social-ecological approach

Physical activity is an important determinant of health throughout the lifespan. Meeting physical activity guidelines has been shown to help improve individuals’ health outcomes as well as prevent or slow the progression of more than 20 chronic health conditions. Previous studies have shown that a large number of Arab Americans do not meet the national physical activity guidelines, and little is known about determinants of physical activity in this population. Guided by the Social Ecological Model (SEM) of McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler, and Glanz (1988), the broad purpose of this cross-sectional descriptive correlational study was to explore the determinants of physical activity in Arab Americans. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to describe the physical activity and investigate the relationships between intrapersonal factors and interpersonal factors and physical activity and to examine to what extent do these factors influence physical activity in Arab Americans. A total of 140 Arab Americans were recruited and provided data for the study. Age, gender, marital status, country of origin, length of the United States (U.S.), birthplace, current residence, number of family members, religious affiliation, level of education, income, employment status and type of job, body mass index, and health status were reported. Interestingly, a majority of the participants (58.6%) reported a high level of physical activity. Spearman’s rho correlation was used to assess the associations between physical activity and sample characteristics, intrapersonal factors, and interpersonal factors. Findings revealed statistically significant associations between physical activity level and health status, religiosity, and physical activity self-efficacy. Three simultaneous multiple linear regression models with gamma regression with a log-link function were used to assess to what extent did sample characteristics, intrapersonal, and interpersonal factors influence physical activity level. Multiple regression models revealed that employment and health status were the only significant factors influencing physical activity level when accounting for other sample characteristics, intrapersonal, and interpersonal factors

Comprehensive licensure review and adaptive quizzing assignments for enhancement of end-of-programme exit examination scores in Saudi Arabia: a quasi-experimental study

Objective This study explores the effectiveness of a comprehensive licensure review and adaptive quizzing assignments intervention in improving the performance of undergraduate senior nursing students on the end-of-programme exit exam.Design A quasi-experimental single-group design was used to compare pretest and post-test scores through computerised adaptive tests.Setting The setting was a nursing college in Saudi Arabia.Participants The study included 292 senior nursing students enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing programme.Intervention A comprehensive licensure review bundled with adaptive quizzing assignments was delivered over 15 weeks in the academic year 2021–2022. The bundle was guided by the elaboration theory, and it included 3-hour synchronous lectures every week and 23 adaptive quizzing assignments that covered weekly content.Primary and secondary outcome measures Students’ mastery scores and the percentage of correct answers were the primary and secondary measures, respectively. Both measures were collected in the pretest and post-test (exit examination). Additionally, demographic characteristics were collected in the pre-test using an online survey.Results The overall mean of the mastery score was statistically significantly higher in the exit exam (M=2.51, SD=1.70) than in the pretest (M=1.45, SD=0.44; p<0.001). Although the overall mean of the mastery score in the exit exam did not reach the cut-off score, students who demonstrated the required knowledge and satisfactory performance in the pretest achieved a mastery score above the cut-off. The percentage of correct answers was statistically significantly higher in the exit exam (M=58.59%, SD=9.50) than in the pretest (M=49.32%, SD=9.78; p<0.001). A statistically significant difference in students’ performance based on gender, age and grade point average was observed.Conclusions A comprehensive licensure review and adaptive quizzing assignments intervention bundle fostered the performance of undergraduate nursing students in the end-of-programme exit exam