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Scorcher Sends More People to the Hospital for Heat-Related Illnesses

HBG_intern — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:02:37 +0000

From The Patriot News:

This weekend’s soaring temperatures appear to be headed back toward normal.

Saturday’s high was 95, one degree off the record set in 2001, National Weather Service meteorologist Paul Head said. If that wasn’t bad enough, the humidity made it feel from 103 to 107 degrees, he said.

It was enough to bring a higher-than-usual number of dehydration and heat exhaustion cases to the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center emergency room, hospital spokeswoman Nicole Kazmar said.

Harrisburg Area Hospitals Believe Patients are Forgoing Medical Care to Avoid Costs

HBG_intern — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:45:37 +0000

From The Patriot News:

Harrisburg-area hospitals say people are passing up needed medical care because of fear of what it will cost.

“Patients are much more willing to delay or skip health care treatment due to cost considerations,” said Bill Mulligan, a spokesman for Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon.

The things people are avoiding include elective surgeries and diagnostic tests. Mulligan attributes it to losses of jobs and health insurance, and changes in coverage that shift more of the bill to patients.

Federal Website Now Offers Information About Emergency and Outpatient Care at U.S. Hospitals

HBG_intern — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:45:31 +0000

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

New information about the quality of outpatient and emergency care in U.S. hospitals is now available on the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website.

At the site (found by clicking the “Compare Care Quality” links at http://www.healthcare.gov), people now can find data gleaned from Medicare claims about how well hospitals do in preventing infections in outpatient surgical patients and whether hospitals are using proven therapies, as well as other information.

CMS has been posting similar information on inpatient care on the website http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov since 2005, and that site has now been updated to include 30-day mortality and readmission information for patients admitted for a heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia.
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Philadelphia Hospitals Battle with Insurers Over Length of Patient Stays

HBG_intern — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:29:06 +0000

From The Bucks County Courier Times:

Signs pointed to a heart attack when the man entered the emergency room complaining of chest pain, which in his case, returned roughly 12 hours after another hospital discharged him after the same symptom subsided.

So the hospital admitted him as a patient to evaluate his condition. The results determined the man had a blocked artery requiring an emergency cardiac catheterization.

But when the hospital submitted its bill, the insurer disagreed. After reviewing patient records, it decided he only needed to be medically observed for 24 hours with outpatient follow-up care. Rather than pay for several days of hospital care, the insurer reduced the charges, a process called downcoding.

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U.S. Hospitals See Drastic Increase in Children with MRSA

HBG_intern — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:23:33 +0000

From The Courier Times:

U.S. hospitals have experienced a ten-fold increase in children hospitalized with highly contagious and drug resistant staph skin infections. The trend is reflected in local emergency rooms, where officials say kids often outnumber adults who are sickened by the persistent super bug.

Equally worrisome, the new study found growing concern the bacteria are developing resistance to one of the main antibiotics used to treat the infections.

Doctors also say they’re seeing the skin infections more frequently in healthy children without the traditional risk factors, such as involvement in contact sports.

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PA Department of Health Issues Report on Hospital Infections

HBG_intern — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:24:57 +0000

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The Pennsylvania Department of Health Thursday issued its most complete report to date of hospital infections, finding that a disproportionate number of poor-performing facilities were in Philadelphia.Those with high infection rates included some of the city’s most storied hospitals, such as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Executives at both institutions said they had made progress since 2009, the year the report focused on. And experts cautioned against using the report to compare hospitals, because the methodology to track infections is evolving.

Hospitals Round-up for 6/11

LManelius — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:46:07 +0000

Sacred Heart Hospital is planning to create a mental health unit as a result of the closure of Allentown State Hospital.

Brownsville General Hospital’s bankruptcy case returns to federal court.

Marian Community Hospital is laying off 26 employees and closing their cancer treatment unit.

Hospitals round-up for 5/28

LManelius — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:52:24 +0000

Albert Einstein Health Network is receiving federal money to build a new hospital in East Norriton.

The state is investigating Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for reusing syringes on patients.

Allegheny General Hospital uses music therapy in its Adult Outpatient Medical Clinic.

Hamot Medical Center and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are still in talks of merging.

Western PA hospitals are leading in the effort to reduce hospital infections

LManelius — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:41:23 +0000

Reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Western Pennsylvania is way ahead of the country when it comes to attacking a deadly type of hospital-acquired infection, local health experts said Thursday after the release of a national report that shows the infection in decline.

The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said central-line bloodstream infections — common in very sick patients who have catheters placed in their necks — declined 18 percent between the period 2006-08 and the first six months of 2009. The region’s two leading hospital networks have achieved more significant drops, according to experts with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and West Penn Allegheny Health System.

“Our goal is zero infections,” said Dr. Sharon Kiely, vice president and chief quality officer at Allegheny General Hospital. Several patient floors and intensive care units in the North Side hospital have reported zero central-line infections in the past several years. “These infections are unacceptable.”

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Phildelphia hospitals are collaborating to find ways to reduce hospital readmissions

LManelius — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:50:05 +0000

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Patients who return to the hospital within a month of being discharged represent one of the most persistent and costly, yet preventable, problems in American health care.

But few solutions have been implemented on a widespread scale. Until now.

On Wednesday, more than 200 area hospital administrators, doctors, nurses, and others met with national experts at the Union League in Center City to learn about strategies to reduce hospital readmissions in the five-county Philadelphia area.

One approach is to use nurses to proactively treat the highest-risk patients – older people with multiple chronic illnesses – who cost the most money.

Another idea was to use a computer-animation program nicknamed “Louise” to prepare patients and their families for the return home. And yet a third was to use “transition coaches” to help patients better manage their own care after a hospitalization.

“We have a lot of interesting innovative practices to share . . . and hopefully that can really accelerate the pace of change in addressing this problem,” said Kate Flynn, president of the regional Health Care Improvement Foundation, which is leading the local effort in partnership with Independence Blue Cross.