Healthcare Administration

The Colorado Hospital Association has announced that it will begin providing state-mandated hospital performance data on the Web later this year. The Colorado Hospital Report Card, which was ordered by the state's legislature, will report mortality rates, the number of procedures and several other patient safety measures. In the future, the report card will include clinical quality measures, patient satisfaction scores, efficiency measures and best practices data. The association already …

The Cleveland Clinic has named an internal medicine physician and consultant as its first chief experience officer, an increasingly popular executive role popping up at large medical organizations across the U.S.. M. Bridget Duffy, M.D. is filling the new position, which will run the Clinic's Patient First Initiative. Her job will be to create a culture which fosters empathy and …

A new measure under consideration in the Ohio legislature would force all of the state's hospitals to operate a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week emergency department. The rule would apply to freestanding surgery centers and other hospital competitors that don't offer a full range of acute care services. The bill is backed strongly by the Ohio Hospital Association which, though it isn't saying so directly, is fighting for turf fiercely defended by its members. Hospitals have long been …

When Harbor-UCLA Medical Center took over operations of troubled Los Angeles hospital King-Drew, the idea was that Harbor would purge much of the facility's staff and upgrade their skills. However, it appears this isn't happening, despite the fact that the hospital promised these changes to CMS after it threatened to pull its accreditation. Yesterday, county health officials told the Board of Supervisors that they had only reassigned one-third of the hospital's 1,200 employees. For …

A federal bill establishing specialized "health courts" for medical malpractice cases continues to progress through Congress. The courts, a concept developed jointly by the Harvard School of Public Health and legal reform group Common Good, would offer full-time judges with healthcare expertise, as well as experts working for the court. The idea is that such judges would be better equipped to evaluate the merits of medical malpractice claims. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Michael Enzi …

With its high-profile legal troubles in the past, Tenet Healthcare executives say that they're turning operations around, with a range of initiatives including physician sales and service programs, improvements efforts targeting under-performing facilities and a "targeted growth" program designed to restructure services within individual hospitals. Execs are also restructuring …

High-profile troubles at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital are bringing the wrath of Congress down on CMS. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) has written a letter to CMS Acting Administrator Leslie Norwalk demanding to know how CMS will make sure that the hospital meets Medicare standards in the future. The facility, formerly known as King-Drew, has faced scrutiny over alleged care lapses for some time now. In its prior incarnation as King-Drew, the hospital had lost …

More evidence from the "tired interns make mistakes" front. A new study presented at a professional conference suggests that extended shifts pose a threat to patient safety, not to mention the health of the interns themselves. Researchers collected more than 17,000 monthly reports from a group of more than 2,700 interns. Study author Laura Barger of Brigham and Women's Hospital then conducted a data analysis to see whether 24-hour-plus shifts were associated with reported medical errors …

In a debate that resonates across the U.S., leaders in Tarrant County, TX are discovering what the real cost would be if they permit illegal immigrants access to the county's indigent care program. This week, a consultant hired by the JPS Health Network board of managers told executives and officials that the cost would be $41.2 million a year, or about 10 percent of the hospital's current operating budget. For that amount, the hospital could see 29,000 new patients and would probably end …

Using mystery shoppers is not a new idea, but it's become even more important in an era when consumers have gotten more choosy about service. In the Boston metro area, several large hospitals are running ongoing mystery shopper programs, focusing on what incoming patients see and how they're treated. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, for example, the management uses six mystery shoppers to study operations in its 26 waiting rooms and emergency department. The shoppers use a 45-item …