A longtime practitioner of yoga and meditation, fashion designer Donna Karan has contributed $850,000 to the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City to bring yoga therapy and a new kind of caregiving to the cancer wing. Karan believes the research attached to the one-year grant will show that hospital stays can be shortened and fewer anxiety drugs administered, which would save the patient and insurance companies money.
In an industry that makes its money by selling more, Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System officials gambled three years ago that they could succeed by doing less, but doing it better. The health system devised a 90-day warranty on elective heart surgery, promising to get it right the first time, for a flat fee. If complications arise or the patient returns to the hospital, Geisinger bears the additional cost. The venture has paid off. Heart patients have fared measurably better, and the health system has cut its bypass surgery costs by 15%.
Two critically ill infants who died earlier this month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Miami Children's Hospital succumbed to infections from an extremely common bacteria found on many humans, health administrators said. The two infants were infected with strains of the Pseudomonas bacteria, which is widespread throughout nature, found in water, soil, plants, and animals. The three children were infected by three different strains of the bacteria, said a senior physician with the Miami-Dade Health Department.
The University of Chicago Medical Center violated federal law by not providing a medical screening exam to a 78-year-old man who died last month in its emergency room, federal health officials say. The Feb. 3 death of the man led to violations of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Such violations, if not corrected to the agency's satisfaction, could lead to a loss of federal funding from the Medicare health insurance program.
The American College of Cardiology is launching a new initiative to reduce the number of patients who are readmitted to hospitals within 30 days of being discharged for congestive heart failure or a heart attack. The effort is part of the society's broader plan to encourage its membership to rein in unnecessary tests and procedures and improve the quality of their care as President Barack Obama makes healthcare overhaul a top priority.
Doctors at Seattle-based Harborview Medical Center call it an epidemic: more young adults are dying from trauma injuries than AIDS and stroke combined. But with all the charity care and the economic recession, trauma centers around the country, including Harborview, are now suffering themselves. In the past eight years, 20 hospitals have closed their trauma centers because they cannot afford the cost of specialized and often charity care.