Is caring for patients in a hospitalist-run clinical decision unit associated with decreased length of stay without increasing revisit rates?
Implementing a hospitalist-run geographic CDU was associated with a 35% decrease in observation LOS for CDU patients compared with a 3.7% decrease for medical-surgical observation patients. CDU LOS decreased without increasing ED or hospital revisit rates.
Our analyses suggest that both host defense mechanisms and levels of circulating virions affect the kinetics of HBV decay assessed in the serum of chronic carriers. Identification of the factors affecting clearance rates will be important for future antiviral drug developments and it may give insights into the mechanisms involved in clearance of other chronic infections, such as human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus.