Browsing by Author "Almeida, Diogo"
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- Benchmarking Portuguese Hospitals through a web based platform (HOBE)Publication . Portela, Maria; Camanho, A. S.; Silva, Sofia; Almeida, Diogo; Castro, Ricardo A.S.; Lopes, LuizAbstract: In a context of international economic crisis the increased efficiency and productivity of public services is seen as a way to maintain quality levels at reduced costs. Increased productivity can be achieved through benchmarking exercises, where a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) are compared between production units. This paper describes a benchmarking platform called HOBE, which compares public hospitals in Portugal. This platform allows hospitals to have on‐line access to a set of indicators based on which each hospital can be compared with its peers (the comparative set of hospitals can be customized). The platform allows benchmarking from a managerial perspective where cost and volume indicators (each subdivided into resources and outputs) are available and can be computed for each service of the hospital. The platform allows the benchmarking between services on individual indicators and also on aggregate indicators. Aggregate service indicators are constructed based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) cost models and allow the consideration of trade‐offs between outputs (something that individual indicators cannot deal with). Aggregate hospital efficiency is also addressed, where we propose a model to aggregate the performance of a set of hospital services into a single performance measure at the hospital level. Some results are presented for the trial years of 2008 and 2009, for which data is publicly available.
- Combined use of chitosan and olfactory mucosa mesenchymal stem/stromal cells to promote peripheral nerve regeneration in vivoPublication . Alvites, Rui D.; Branquinho, Mariana V.; Sousa, Ana C.; Amorim, Irina; Magalhães, Rui; João, Filipa; Almeida, Diogo; Amado, Sandra; Prada, Justina; Pires, Isabel; Zen, Federica; Raimondo, Stefania; Luís, Ana L.; Geuna, Stefano; Varejão, Artur S. P.; Maurício, Ana C.Peripheral nerve injury remains a clinical challenge with severe physiological and functional consequences. Despite the existence of multiple possible therapeutic approaches, until now, there is no consensus regarding the advantages of each option or the best methodology in promoting nerve regeneration. Regenerative medicine is a promise to overcome this medical limitation, and in this work, chitosan nerve guide conduits and olfactory mucosa mesenchymal stem/stromal cells were applied in different therapeutic combinations to promote regeneration in sciatic nerves after neurotmesis injury. Over 20 weeks, the intervened animals were subjected to a regular functional assessment (determination of motor performance, nociception, and sciatic indexes), and after this period, they were evaluated kinematically and the sciatic nerves and cranial tibial muscles were evaluated stereologically and histomorphometrically, respectively. The results obtained allowed confirming the beneficial effects of using these therapeutic approaches. The use of chitosan NGCs and cells resulted in better motor performance, better sciatic indexes, and lower gait dysfunction after 20 weeks. The use of only NGGs demonstrated better nociceptive recoveries. The stereological evaluation of the sciatic nerve revealed identical values in the different parameters for all therapeutic groups. In the muscle histomorphometric evaluation, the groups treated with NGCs and cells showed results close to those of the group that received traditional sutures, the one with the best final values. The therapeutic combinations studied show promising outcomes and should be the target of new future works to overcome some irregularities found in the results and establish the combination of nerve guidance conduits and olfactory mucosa mesenchymal stem/stromal cells as viable options in the treatment of peripheral nerves after injury.