Starting October 1, 2008, Medicare will no longer pay for eight hospital-acquired conditions that could be prevented if hospitals followed the proper guidelines. Those eight conditions are bed sores, objects left inside the patient during surgery, falls that occur when the patient is in the hospital, blood incompatibility, air embolism, mediastinitis (infection of the area….
Continue ReadingStandard of Care--Hospitals
For Better Medical Care, Bring a Friend
Senior citizens who bring company to their doctor or hospital visits receive better medical care, according to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Of the 38.6% of elderly patients who brought a companion along on their medical visits, the most common person to bring along was a spouse or an adult….
Continue ReadingA Patient’s Advice to Hospital Staff
Larry Ragan, a man who spent a great deal of time around doctors before dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease, made a list of suggestions for hospital workers, regarding how they can improve their treatment of patients. Much of the advice centers around basic respect. Don’t condescend to a patient by using their first name without….
Continue ReadingPsychiatric Patients Face Long ER Waits
A new study from the American College of Emergency Physicians shows that scarcity of beds and a decrease in the number of hospitals with mental health units has led to long emergency room waits for psychiatric patients. As the article points out, almost eighty percent of hospitals have a four-hour wait for mentally ill patients…..
Continue ReadingRegion Affects Health Care Quality
Researchers at Dartmouth University have found striking regional differences in quality of health care. In addition, within any given region, black people are less likely to receive the appropriate health care than white people. But region was the strongest factor that affected quality of health care. From the article: For instance, the widest racial gaps….
Continue ReadingGovernment Website Rates Hospitals
The U.S. government is launching an ad campaign to promote a website where consumers can check to see how good their hospitals are, measured by such things as patient satisfaction and cooperation with recommended care guidelines. The website, called Hospital Compare, can be found here. But the federal government is not the only such purveyor….
Continue ReadingA Growing Trend of Patient Advocates
There is a growing industry of hired patient advocates. Patients are hiring people to defend their interests when they go to the hospital. The impetus from this comes from the huge number of patients who die because of medical error, and the growing consensus that going into a hospital as a patient alone is one….
Continue ReadingStudy: Patients Feel Uncomfortable Asking Doctors about Hand-washing
Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times reports on a study by British researchers investigating what questions patients felt comfortable asking their doctors. Questions that did not imply anything about the doctor’s preparation or experience or authority were easy to ask–for example, questions about length of stay, or details about how a procedure worked. However,….
Continue ReadingNew Study: Patients Dissatisfied with Hospitals
A new survey on patients’ opinions on their hospital stays has some disturbing results: Many patients reported that they had not been treated with courtesy and respect by doctors and nurses; that they had not received adequate pain medication after surgery; and that they did not understand the instructions they received when discharged from the….
Continue ReadingAnti-Psychotics in Nursing Homes, Re-visited
In a previous entry, we discussed the phenomenon of a form elder abuse in nursing homes wherein staff give anti-psychotics elderly patients without psychotic disorders in order to make them easier to deal with. Earlier this month, a study was released following up on that, showing which states have the highest rate of this form….
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