• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.622-628
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• 2007

Purpose : While pediatric observation units (POU) have become a common practice in hospitals throughout developed countries, there has been no report about POUs in Korea so far. The aims of this study were to analyze our one-year's experience of the POU and to decide which disease entities are suitable for the POU. Methods : All children admitted from March 2006 to February 2007 to the POU at the Department of Pediatrics in Our Lady of Mercy Hospital were included in this study. Data were collected from retrospective reviews of their medical records. Results : There were a total of 1,076 POU admissions. Median age of patients was 2.4 years and median length of hospital stay 14.0 hours. The most common diagnoses were gastroenteritis (42.7%), pharyngotonsillitis (19.1%), bronchiolitis (7.8%), pneumonia (5.5%) and febrile seizure (5.2%). Overall, 7.5% of the POU patients required subsequent inpatient admissions due to hospital stays of longer than 48 hours. The disease entities that were most likely to require inpatient admission were pneumonia (17.0%), febrile seizure (12.5%) and asthma (11.5%). Diseases that allowed successful discharge from the POU were gastroenteritis (4.6%), upper respiratory tract infection (5.8%), such as otitis media and pharygnotonsillitis and seizure disorder (6.4%). Compared with the previous year when the POU was not in operation, there was a statistically significant reduction in the average length of hospital stays (from 4.69 to 3.75 days), as well as a rise in the bed turnover rate (from 78.8 to 98.2 patients/bed). Conclusion : Our study shows that the POU is efficient for the management of children with certain acute illnesses. Based on this study, we suggest that the POU be used as a new modality which links between the outpatient, inpatient, and emergency departments in the field of pediatrics in Korea.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 1999

This study was based on a series of 164 patients with zygomatic bone fracture treated at Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of Chonnam University Hospital from January 1992 to December 1996. The male-to-female ratio was 7:1. Their ages ranged from 8 to 78 years, with a median age of 35.6 years. The age frequency was highest in the second decade (30.5%), and third decade (23.8%), fifth decade (16.5%) in orders. The monthly distrbution of incidence showed October to be the month in which the greatest percentage occured (14.0%). The major cause of zygomatic bone fracture was alleged traffic accidents (53.7%). The incidence of concomitant facial bone fractures was 69,5%, and maxilla fracture (52.4%) was most frequently combined. The admission route was through emergency room (72.3%) and through outpatient department (26.8%). The incidence of associated injuries was 37.2%. The intraoral approach was the major method of treatment in zygomatic bone fracture (57.1%). The most frequent type of zygoma fracture was class IV (33.5%), and class III (25.6%) was next in order of frequency. Complications were enophthalmos (7.3%), facial asymmetry (6.7%), paresthesia (6.1%), and diplopia (2.4%) These results suggest that correct diagnosis and treatment of severity of fracture, concomitant fracture, and associated injuries are necessary, and co-operative treatment with medical department should be performed to reduce postoperative complication.