elderly patients

Nursing home residents are routinely sent to hospitals, but according to a new study nearly a third of those hospitalizations could be avoided if nursing home doctors were on hand to prevent illnesses from escalating. Trips to the hospital are extremely stressful for elderly patients who are already frail and dealing with medical problems on a daily basis.

According to the Boston Globe, there's a growing movement to cut down on the number of unnecessary hospitalizations by …

Some hospitals have argued for years that patient satisfaction scores can be misleading when it comes to gauging the quality of the healthcare services they receive. After all, patients are only human, aren't they? And can easily be swayed by factors that have little if anything to do with the true quality of care. A new study out in the Annals of Internal Medicine appears to back this view. RAND Researchers and a team from the University of California Los Angeles surveyed 236 elderly …

A judge in San Diego declared a mistrial in the federal kickback trial of Alvarado Medical Center after 11 months, marking the second time the case has been thrown out. Prosecutors had argued that the Tenet-owned hospital and former CEO Barry Weinbaum violated federal law by paying lucrative relocation bonuses to doctors in exchange for referrals. The case is seen as a potential turning point for the Dallas-based Tenet, which has endured a three year long slide after federal authorities …

A study of 455 elderly patients showed that hospital-type care in the home was cheaper, more effective in terms of lower length of stay and favored by over 60 percent of the patients. "The hospital-at-home care model is feasible, safe and efficacious for certain older patients with selected acute medical illnesses who require acute hospital-level care," wrote the authors, led by Johns Hopkins' Bruce Leff in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Report (pdf)

Louisiana authorities charged the operators of a nursing home in New Orleans in the deaths of 34 elderly patients entrusted to their care. Mable and Salvador Magano, the owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home, turned themselves in to authorities and were charged with 34 counts of criminally negligent homicide. Nearly all of the patients at the home died on August 29 as rising flood waters swamped the one-story facility. Officials say the couple had adequate advance warning but failed to …