Milford Regional is part of a wave of hospitals nationwide that are implementing volunteer programs with the goal of making sure patients have companionship when they pass away. About one-third of all deaths still occur in hospitals, despite efforts to discourage this. Boston Medical Center, which treats many homeless patients who are estranged from their families, adopted a similar program about two years ago. BMC recruits its own employees for vigils, including the hospital's associate general counsel, an executive assistant, and a manager in information technology. The idea emerged 15 years ago at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Oregon, where Sandra Clarke worked the night shift as a critical care nurse.
Already accustomed to sharing a bone marrow transplant program, Sharp HealthCare and the UC San Diego Health System are broadening their collaboration to include liver transplantation. The two organizations have finalized a deal designed to streamline joint management of highly complex and expensive cases — from the moment symptoms of liver failure emerge to the extensive post-surgical care needed to prevent a recipient's body from rejecting a new liver. Although it has long-standing transplant programs for the heart, kidney and pancreas, Sharp currently does not perform liver transplant surgeries. That will not change under the joint management agreement with the university, which already handles the bulk of Sharp's liver transplant cases.
Regular use of proton pump inhibitors appears to be linked to chronic kidney disease, but additional studies are needed to determine whether the drugs actually cause kidney damage, and, if so, how, researchers said.
Kudos to the Globe Spotlight Team for its recent article, "Concurrent surgeries come under new scrutiny" (Dec. 20), which shed light on the practice, at Massachusetts General Hospital and other facilities, of scheduling patients for simultaneous surgeries in an effort to provide better care, contain costs, and boost efficiency. The medical community needs to make a decision on whether this practice is in the patient's best interest. I write this not as a board member and founder of Susan G. Komen, the world's largest breast cancer charity. I write this as the personal statement of a patient who has endured numerous breast cancer operations
Concurrent surgery, The practice of a surgeon having two operating rooms going at the same time, has been the subject of considerable public attention after the Globe's Spotlight team released an investigative report of this practice at Massachusetts General Hospital. This is an important topic to me, because, as a head and neck cancer surgeon, I practice concurrent surgery at times. I also, in my academic job, research the operating room and how to make surgical care safer and more efficient. The surprised reaction that many people had about the existence of concurrent surgery makes sense to me — the general public does not know much about the day-to-day activity of the operating room beyond what is portrayed on television.
While medical advances are saving the lives of babies born before they should be, and even pushing the limits of viability to babies born at 22 weeks' gestation, their cases are reminders that technology doesn't always work as expected. Instead, doctors and families are left figuring out how to deal with the unexpected results. "They represent a small but significant group of children who, on one hand, are success stories of our technology, but on the other hand, have challenges," said Dr. Sessions Cole, the hospital's chief medical officer. "The parents ask, 'What is going to happen to him, doctor?'"