Healthcare Administration

Troubled by a recent case in which a woman died awaiting treatment in its emergency department, at least one Los Angeles County supervisor is pressing Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital to train its staff better. Supervisor Yvonne Burke wants to see the hospital, which treats many indigent patients, require customer service training for key employees. Officials are responding to the recent death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez, a 43-year-old woman who died in the emergency department lobby …

Often, patients get conflicting advice from the different specialists they see, in part due to competition for business. This is particularly common among specialties like cardiology, vascular surgery, cardiac surgery and neurology, where the lines between specialties have begun to blur. To sidestep this issue, some specialists are forming groups that serve the hospital jointly, with guidelines requiring all physicians to work as a team. Not only does this improve collaboration between …

Hospitals are pouring big bucks into expansions across the U.S., but the trend is particularly marked in Arizona, whose hospital infrastructure has fallen behind as the state has grown. Right now, the state only has two inpatient beds per 1,000 residents, compared with an average of 2.8 inpatient beds per 1,000 nationwide. In response, the state's hospitals have set plans for $3.3 billion worth of building over the next five years. The construction process will add about 2,900 beds across …

In part due to backups in its emergency room, which often boards patients who can't find beds, Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital is moving ahead with the most expensive hospital project in the history of the state. The hospital will construct a $498 million, 10-story building next to its entrance, adding 150 beds and 19 operating rooms. The new facility comes as hospital capacity across the state shrinks. Since 1985, the number of hospitals in the state has fallen from 113 to …

Here's another example of the issues hospitals are confronting as scrutiny mounts over charity care. This time it's publicly-funded healthcare system JPS Health Network of Fort Worth, TX, which is facing questions from at least one community activist and the local medical society over its charity claims. Commissioners in Tarrant County, which funds the hospital district with property taxes, got a withering letter from critic Ann Sutherland this …

Quite aware that a misstep could generate a huge backlash among hospitals, CMS has chosen a conservative course for its planned publication of cardiac death rates. Starting next month, the agency will publish death rates for heart attack and heart failure on its Hospital Compare website. The reports, which reflect stats from July 2005 to June 2006, profile heart attack and heart failure patients who died within a month of entering the …

A new study suggests that preemies do better if they're treated in higher-volume, high-tech neonatal intensive care units. The study, which appears today in the New England Journal of Medicine, reviewed records on 48,000 premature and fetal deaths in California from 1991 through 2000, focusing on infants with birth rates of one to three pounds. Upon analyzing the data, researchers found that extremely premature infants survived twice as often when they were treated at a busy …

Medicare has set plans to stop paying for 13 common conditions typically created by hospital errors, putting out a proposal that could be implemented late next year. Conditions cited include catheter-related urinary tract infections, bed sores, MRSA infections, wrong-site surgery and surgical site infections. Not only would such a policy have a potentially significant effect on hospitals, it could provoke the institution of similar policies by commercial health plans, which often follow …

A legal tempest has blown up in Kentucky over claims that a Louisville hospital has not been maintaining sanitary conditions. Two attorneys had sued Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's Healthcare, the parent organization, arguing that conditions at Jewish Hospital were grossly unsanitary, causing infections which resulted in patient illnesses and death. The suits cite reports suggesting that the hospital had many substantial infection-control problems, including a failure to clean reusable …

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is facing a public controversy after a donor pitch letter inadvertently exposed the former patients' Social Security numbers. The letter, which went out to about 6,000 former patients earlier this month, included a tracking code that integrated the SSN. The code was visible through the envelope window. Critics call the inclusion of the SSN a serious mishap, arguing that it could expose the 6,000 recipients to identity theft. UPMC denies that …