Last week, an outbreak of a superbug known as CRE at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles prompted the FDA to alert hospitals and medical providers to the possibility that a medical device used for gastroenterological problems might be the culprit. At this writing, two people have died and nearly 200 have been….
Continue ReadingStandard of Care--Hospitals
For Hospitals, Medicare Giveth and Taketh
Part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“Obamacare”) was greater accountability in hospital care, and Medicare payments were structured according to how well hospitals performed. After crunching the feds’ data for those standards last month, a mixed picture emerged. As reported by KaiserHealthNews.org (KHN), most hospitals Medicare graded on overall quality are getting bonuses…..
Continue ReadingIn Military Hospitals, Whistle Blowing Is Bad for Your Health
Another takeout in the New York Times’ coverage of poor quality in our nation’s military medical system has this quote about what happens when doctors and nurses on the inside complain: ” … brushed off, transferred, investigated, passed over for promotion or fired after they pointed out problems with care.” The Times had asked anyone….
Continue ReadingRousing ICU Patients Shows Benefits
The most seriously ill hospital patients reside in the intensive care unit (ICU), a necessary treatment that nevertheless presents serious risks of its own. (See our blog, “Brain Problems Can Endure Long After Leaving the ICU.”) Recent research shows that waking up ICU patients and encouraging them to breathe on their own decreases both their….
Continue ReadingFeds Quietly Stop Reporting Some Hospital Errors
We’ve long advised medical consumers to research hospitals they’re considering using for the kind and frequency of errors they make. But according to a story on USAToday.com, suddenly that’s more difficult than it used to be. “The federal government this month quietly stopped publicly reporting when hospitals leave foreign objects in patients’ bodies or make….
Continue ReadingLegal Remedies for Patients Harmed by Unsafe Injection Practices
“Law as a Tool to Promote Healthcare Safety,” an article recently published in Clinical Governance: An International Journal, discusses how the legal system can punish health-care providers who engage in unsafe injection practices, and deter them, and others, from putting future patients at risk. As we wrote in our blog “Safe Injection Practices Are not….
Continue ReadingHow to Shop Smartly for a Plastic Surgeon
When a celebrity “has work done” and the job goes wrong, it’s splashed all over the tabloids. When it happens to you, it doesn’t make the news, but the results are equally devastating. Dr. Patrick Hsu, a plastic surgeon, recently wrote on KevinMD.com that the number of people having plastic surgery is increasing, and that….
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading — ER Doctor Become ER Patient
It’s too bad that Dr. Charolotte Yeh, an emergency physician, had to get hit by a car before experiencing emergency medicine from the other side of the bed. But she learned an important lesson we hope will be shared widely among her peers. Following are excerpts from “‘Nothing Is Broken’: For an Injured Doctor, Quality-Focused….
Continue ReadingBeing Hospitalized Can Cause Illness
Every year, approximately 1.7 million people in the U.S. acquire an infection from being in the hospital. What’s becoming an even more ominous outcome of that experience is post-hospital syndrome – a condition of extreme vulnerability to a variety of health threats to which recently discharged patients are subject. A case study of the syndrome….
Continue ReadingHospitals Show Small Improvement in Patient Safety
Last week’s report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS, or Medicare), was good news for monitors of two thorny problems associated with being in the hospital – the high incidence of injury, and the large numbers of “bounce backs” — readmissions within 30 days of discharge. As explained on KaiserHealthNews.org (KHN), the….
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