As noted many times on this blog, nurses are the patient safety mainstays of good hospital care. So should hospitals be required to maintain a minimum nurse-to-patient ratio? California has done so, and nurse Theresa Brown wrote an op-ed recently in the New York Times discussing a proposed federal mandate (which seems to be going….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2010
Tips for Getting Home Safely from the Hospital — and Staying Home
It’s such a relief to get a family member home from the hospital that many of us don’t realize how crucial the next few weeks are in making sure the patient stays home and gets healthy. Hospitals don’t always help the situation by giving out confusing and cryptic discharge instructions. For this especially vulnerable time,….
Continue ReadingKicked Out of the Hospital Too Soon? Call This Number
The number is 1-800-MEDICARE (800-633-4227). It only applies if the patient is on Medicare, but it also works for protests of discharge from nursing homes too. The operator will send you on to your local Medicare QIO — Quality Improvement Organization, a little-known patient safety organization that has power to investigate and reverse dangerous decisions….
Continue ReadingA Life-Saving Number: The Nurse-to-Patient Ratio
The greatest fear for any patient in the hospital, and the biggest nightmare for their families, is that something will go wrong suddenly and no one will respond until it’s too late. Beeping monitors are no help if their alarms go unheeded. Patient safety experts know that one basic way to keep patients safe and….
Continue ReadingThe Shingles Vaccine: Underused Because Over-Hassled
If you had chicken pox as a kid, you have a one-in-three chance of developing shingles in your old age, and that can spell months or even years of searing pain. There’s an effective vaccine to protect against shingles, but it’s seldom used, and therein lies a story of the inadvertent clash between patient safety….
Continue ReadingMalpractice Suit Exposes “Ghost Surgery” at the Cleveland Clinic
Sometimes patients sign up for surgery with an experienced surgeon who then allows a doctor in training, with far less experience, to do the actual surgery. If this hasn’t been disclosed up front by the surgeon and agreed to by the patient, the switcheroo is called “ghost surgery,” and it’s not acceptable. But exactly that….
Continue ReadingWhy Is U.S. Health Care So Expensive?
A new report comparing the United States to other industrialized countries has a depressing list of all the ways that America outstrips other countries in money spent but lags behind in health quality results. For example: * Per person, the U.S. spends twice as much on health care as on food, and much more than….
Continue ReadingConflicts of Interest: Not Bad People, Just Human
Recent news on this blog about unnecessary heart stents in Baltimore and overly complex back surgeries across America may give some readers the wrong idea. This malpractice and patient safety blog is not about good versus evil and picking a doctor to trust because you decide he or she is a “good” trustworthy person. Instead,….
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