Researchers focused on 10 hospitals in western France, where there's a known shortage of ICU beds. They found that of 1,332 patients referred to the hospitals' ICUs over three months, almost 15 percent were turned away (at least temporarily) because there were no open beds. Overall, 33 percent died within the next 60 days, versus 27 percent of patients admitted to the ICU immediately. The findings suggest that a shortage of ICU beds is leading to preventable deaths, the researchers report in the American Journal of Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine.
Peninsula Hospital, hobbled by a partial state-imposed shutdown, told more than 200 employees on Friday they were being laid off. The hospital, which is struggling to come out of bankruptcy, also agreed to let a trustee appointed by its creditors oversee operations. State Health Department officials ordered a shutdown of the Far Rockaway hospital's lab on Feb. 23 after finding expired plasma in the blood bank and other violations. Patients were transferred out and ambulances have been diverted to other facilities. Some services, such as radiology, are continuing, but with a much smaller contingent of employees.
Trinity Health's Michigan hospitals today signed an agreement with the University of Michigan to improve and design new ways to deliver health care. The hope is to position the institutions for federal money that rewards the best coordinated systems. U-M and the 14 Trinity hospitals in Michigan first will look at seven areas: inpatient hospital capacity; complex care for the terminally ill; pediatrics; cancer; physician training and hiring; clinical research; and support services, such as computer technology.
Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center is the target of more than 100 open lawsuits by patients who claim they—or their dead relatives—were harmed instead of healed, Brooklyn Supreme Court records show. At least a dozen cases allege patients died due to malpractice or negligence at the cash-strapped Brownsville hospital—including a mugging victim with traumatic brain injuries and two patients whose severe pressure ulcers led to fatal infections.
A clinic is among several efforts by South Hampton Roads hospitals to help patients stay healthy enough to avoid return visits. About $25 billion is wasted annually on such rehospitalizations, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute. So far, at least one program has documented monetary savings. Bon Secours "life coaches" link uninsured emergency room patients with free or reduced-price primary care at nearby clinics. Only 12 of 1,000 patients seen by DePaul Medical Center's two life coaches in 2010 returned to the emergency department for the same complaint that year, and the Norfolk hospital saved an estimated $150,000.
Of the 50 lowest-scoring hospitals nationwide in those four measures, 30 were in the New York City area, which includes the five boroughs as well as neighboring communities in Westchester, Long Island, and New Jersey. And the five lowest-rated hospitals nationally were all here, too. Included in the bunch: Forest Hills Hospital. Equally distressing, only five hospitals in the whole area—all of them outside of New York City itself—scored at or above the national average. The highest scoring in the city, the NYU Langone Medical Center, was still 10 percent worse than the national average.