A survey on indoor patient satisfaction in a private tertiary level surgical hospital in central India

Background: Patient satisfaction is an extremely important factor responsible for the success and growth of any hospital. Hence this survey was done in a super-speciality Uro-gynaecology hospital in Nagpur, Central India to assess the patient satisfaction for indoor facilities.Methods: The present study was conducted over a period of 4 months in 100 indoor patients. These patients were asked to fill up a questionnaire just before they were discharged.Results: 88% respondents found the service by reception staff as excellent. 64% were admitted and allotted rooms within 30 minutes of arrival. 94% said that the time given by doctors was satisfactory. 96% were extremely satisfied with the disease description, 98% said that the perception of efficiency of doctors and the details of investigations discussed were excellent. 90% felt that the number of visits by doctors were adequate. Availability of medicines in the pharmacy was there for most of the times (98%). Drinking water and availability of toilets, electricity and cleanliness was present (94%). 52% were really satisfied with the final bill.Conclusions: Patients are satisfied regarding the basic amenities of the hospital and the provision for water and cleanliness levels. They are happy with the attitude and communication skills of the doctors, they expressed satisfaction about the availability of in-house pharmacy too

Predictors of Early Introduction of Core and Discretionary Foods in Australian Infants-Results from HSHK Birth Cohort Study.

Early introduction of complementary foods can have a detrimental impact on children's long-term health. This study examined the timing and determinants of early introduction of core and discretionary foods among infants in Sydney, Australia. Mothers (n = 1035) from an ongoing population-based birth cohort study were interviewed at 8, 17, 34 and 52 weeks postpartum. The outcome was 'age at which particular core and discretionary food items were first introduced'. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to investigate family and infant-related determinants of early introduction of core (<17 weeks of age) and discretionary foods (<52 weeks of age). Of the 934 mother-infant dyads interviewed, 12% (n = 113) of infants were introduced core foods before 17 weeks of age (median: 22). Mothers working part-time (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 3.42, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.54-7.62) and those exclusively formula-feeding their babies at four-weeks postpartum (adjusted OR 3.26, 95% CI: 1.99-5.33) were most likely to introduce core foods early. Ninety-five percent (n = 858) of infants were introduced discretionary foods before 52 weeks of age (median: 28). Low socio-economic status was significantly associated with early introduction of discretionary foods (adjusted OR: 3.72, 95% CI: 1.17-11.78). Compliance with infant feeding guidelines related to core foods was better; however, discretionary foods were introduced early in most infants

CORF3D contour maps with application to Holstein cattle recognition using RGB and thermal images

Livestock management involves the monitoring of farm animals by tracking certain physiological and phenotypical characteristics over time. In the dairy industry, for instance, cattle are typically equipped with RFID ear tags. The corresponding data (e.g. milk properties) can then be automatically assigned to the respective cow when they enter the milking station. In order to move towards a more scalable, affordable, and welfare-friendly approach, automatic non-invasive solutions are more desirable. Thus, a non-invasive approach is proposed in this paper for the automatic identification of individual Holstein cattle from the side view while exiting a milking station. It considers input images from a thermal-RGB camera. The thermal images are used to delineate the cow from the background. Subsequently, any occluding rods from the milking station are removed and inpainted with the fast marching algorithm. Then, it extracts the RGB map of the segmented cattle along with a novel CORF3D contour map. The latter contains three contour maps extracted by the Combination of Receptive Fields (CORF) model with different strengths of push-pull inhibition. This mechanism suppresses noise in the form of grain type texture. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by means of experiments using a 5-fold and a leave-one day-out cross-validation on a new data set of 3694 images of 383 cows collected from the Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden (the Netherlands) over 9 days. In particular, when combining RGB and CORF3D maps by late fusion, an average accuracy of was obtained for the 5-fold cross validation and for the leave–one day–out experiment. The two maps were combined by first learning two ConvNet classification models, one for each type of map. The feature vectors in the two FC layers obtained from training images were then concatenated and used to learn a linear SVM classification model. In principle, the proposed approach with the novel CORF3D contour maps is suitable for various image classification applications, especially where grain type texture is a confounding variable

Control of a variable stiffness joint for catching a moving object

The paper presents a control method to catch a moving object with a joint actuated by means of a variable stiffness actuator. The controller is designed such that the variable stiffness joint acts as a virtual damper that absorbs the kinetic energy of the moving object. The virtual damping and the output stiffness of the variable stiffness actuator are the control variables. To obtain a critically damped system, the damping coefficient is scheduled on both the output stiffness and the inertia of the system. Experiments on the rotational variable stiffness actuator vsaUT-II validate the control method

Determinants of Full Breastfeeding at 6 Months and Any Breastfeeding at 12 and 24 Months among Women in Sydney: Findings from the HSHK Birth Cohort Study

The aim of this study was to report on breastfeeding duration up to 24 months and determine the predictors of breastfeeding duration among women in South Western Sydney, one of the most culturally diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged regions of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Mother–infant dyads (n = 1035) were recruited to the Healthy Smiles Healthy Kids birth cohort study. Study data were collected through telephone interviews at 2, 4, 8, 12, and 24 months postpartum. Cox proportional hazards models were used to determine factors associated with the risk of stopping full breastfeeding at six months and any breastfeeding at 12 and 24 months. The majority of mothers (92.3%) had initiated breastfeeding. At six months, 13.5% of infants were fully breastfed, while 49.9% received some breast milk. Only 25.5% and 2.9% of infants received some breast milk at 12 and 24 months, respectively. Lower maternal education level, lower socioeconomic status, full-time employment, maternal smoking during pregnancy, and caesarean delivery were associated with increased risk of stopping full breastfeeding at six months and any breastfeeding at 12 and 24 months. Older maternal age and partner’s preference for breastfeeding were associated with an increased likelihood of continuing any breastfeeding at 12 and 24 months. These findings present a number of opportunities for prolonging breastfeeding duration in disadvantaged communities in NSW

Content analysis of nutritional information in paediatric oral health education leaflets

Background: The aim of this study was to determine if paediatric oral health education leaflets with a food and nutritional focus provide messages that are clear and consistent with the current Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Infant Feeding Guidelines. Methods: Forty-three leaflets aimed at parents were sourced from Australian state and territory Health Departments, oral health industry partners and commercial organisations, and a content analysis was performed. Recommendations on food and drink type, consumption frequency and general diet and nutrition advice were considered and cross-referenced with the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Infant Feeding Guidelines to identify areas of consistency and discrepancy. Results: Twenty leaflets recommended reducing the consumption of sugary and/or acidic food, while 23 leaflets recommended reducing the consumption of sugary and/or acidic drinks. The majority of the leaflets advised water (n = 35) and milk (n = 23) to drink. Although 33 leaflets encouraged a healthy diet, seven of these did not specify what a healthy diet was. Twenty-eight leaflets provided early childhood-related (0-2 years) feeding advice. Confusing messages were found in nine leaflets, with ambiguous recommendations that were open to individual interpretation. Conclusions: There were some inconsistencies between the leaflets and the dietary and infant feeding guidelines in Australia; and across the leaflets, as not all important messages were included in any one leaflet. Government Health Departments and other relevant agencies should ensure that advisory messages regarding diet, particularly those with dental implications, are clear, complete and consistent across all dental educational leaflets. © 2017 The Author(s)