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X M Huang

Publications and source records attributed to X M Huang.

42 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMedDate not supplied

Setting up waiting-time targets to satisfy patients: an application of mathematical programming.

An out-patient-waiting-time standard has been set up by the government in the Patient's Charter and the standard is supposed to be effective nationwide indiscriminately. This standard is static and does not take into account local variations in patient expectations, patient unpunctualities in keeping their appointments, changing demand, and resource (or budget) constraints. Therefore, it is not surprising that many acute hospitals or Trusts (including the best-known teaching hospitals) have failed to achieve a satisfactory performance against this standard. In this paper, we argue that, while regarding this standard as the government's expectation, local out-patient-waiting-time targets could be set up more comprehensively each year on the basis of prevailing patient expectations, so that the most cost-effective (or optimal) quality is achieved instead of the ideal (or best) quality. We have also developed a mathematical-programming model which can be used to help determine the out-patient waiting-time targets in a systematic way, once the expected degrees of patient satisfaction are specified. A numerical example is provided to illustrate how the model works.

Ambulatory Care↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A planning model for requirement of emergency beds.

In-patient bed requirement (or number of beds required to cope with the workload) is of prime importance for hospital management because of its direct implication for manpower requirement and therefore the costs. In-patient beds could be divided into emergency beds and elective beds, where the requirement for emergency beds will be affected by both patient length of stay distributions and the random patterns in which patients arrive. In this paper, the author extends the early results by Pike et al. (1963, Br. J. Prev. Soc. Med. 17, 172) so that day-of-week effect is introduced into the queuing model to evaluate the requirement of emergency beds. It is demonstrated that emergency bed occupancy on any specific day of the week follows a Poisson distribution.

Emergency Service, Hospital↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Loss of heterozygosity and its correlation with clinical outcome and Epstein-Barr virus infection in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Sixty-one human nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPC) were examined by allelotype analysis for the purposes of detecting potential association between loss of heterozygosity (LOH), clinicopathological parameters and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. LOH was performed using 257 polymorphic markers on 22 chromosomes. High frequency LOH (> or = 60%) was observed on 12 chromosome arms including 1p, 2p, 2q, 3p, 3q, 5q, 9p. 9q, 11q, 13q, 14q and 17q, with the highest LOH frequency of 91% on 3p. Seventy-three loci presented LOH frequency > or = 30%; most of these loci clustered on 1p36 p34, 2p25-p24, 3p14-p21, 3p24-p26, 5q11-q14, 5q31-q33, 9p21-p23, 9q33-q34, 11q23-q25, 13q12 q14, 13q31-q33, 14q13-q11, 14q32 and 19q13. On 1p36-p34, 2p25-p24, 5q13-q11, 5q31-q33 and 19q13 are reported for the first time. LOH was correlated with specific clinicopathological parameters including tumor T-stage, N-stage, TNM-stage, tumor differentiation and serum antibody titers of IgA against virus capsid antigens (VCA) and early antigen (EA) of EBV in NPC (LOH frequency > or = 30%). Significantly high LOH frequency was observed on 9p21 (56%) and 19q13 (50%) in NPC with stage T3+T4, while significantly higher LOH frequency was observed on 12p11 (65%) in NPC with stage T1 + T2. Significantly higher LOHfrequency on 19q13 was also observed in NPC with advanced TNM-stage (III+IV). High fractional allelic loss (FAL) value and high antibody titers of EBV IgA/VCA and/or IgA/EA were significantly correlated with T3 + T4-stage, distant lymph node metastasis and advanced TNM-stage of NPC. We also found that NPC patients with high titers of IgA/VCA and IgA/EA showed high LOH frequency on 16q (48%) and 19q13 (48%). These results suggest that LOH on 9p21, l6q and 19q13 may be responsible for the aggressiveness and progression of NPC; there may be an interaction between allelic loss and EBV infection in the etiology of NPC. High frequency of LOH on 4q21 and 14q11-q12 were alsofound to be correlated with WHO type III NPC histopathology, suggesting that LOH on these regions may cause poor NPC differentiation. Our data also may be useful for the development of a NPC molecular staging system, a system which may augment the use of clinical pathological features in the diagnosis and prognosis of this disease.

Adult↗