Two new reports have found that many clinicians remain skeptical of quality comparison information that is now available for consumers online, often leaving consumers with little information about costs and services to make the best choices for care. However, a lack of this data did not seem to affect most consumers surveyed, as many said they would opt for a more familiar but less highly rated hospital or physician rather than an better ranked, unknown one provider.
For the second time in three years, a University of Kansas Hospital cancer patient has received tainted platelets from the Community Blood Center. In the first case, the patient died within 48 hours after receiving a transfusion laced with E. coli bacteria. In the second instance, which occurred Oct. 13, the patient spent days on a respirator and nearly died. The FDA's regional office visited KU's blood bank last week and has reviewed the Community Blood Center's policies. KU's transfusion committee also will review the hospital’s platelet safety procedures. The hospital will bring in national experts to review its blood safety policies.
Hospitalized patients who received blood that had been stored for more than four weeks were nearly three times as likely to develop infections as those who received fresher blood, researchers said.
The blood itself was not infected, but the release of chemical agents called cytokines by the stored blood may have affected the recipient's immune systems, rendering them more susceptible to infections, said Raquel Nahra, MD, of the Sparks Regional Medical Center in Ft. Smith, AK. The patients typically suffered an increase in urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and infections associated with intravenous lines, she told a Philadelphia meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
In the first national survey of patients' experiences, many hospitals were found wanting in key areas such as pain management and discharge instructions. Almost one-third of patients gave low ratings to pain management, and one-fifth gave low ratings to communication at discharge. For the study, a Harvard team reviewed data from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. Of the 4,032 hospitals that report quality of care data, 2,429 reported patients' experience.
Rising blood costs and mounting safety concerns about transfusions are leading hospitals to adopt stricter measures to manage their blood supplies. A growing number of hospitals are developing guidelines for when transfusions are necessary, and they are making sure doctors are in compliance. Institutions also are increasingly checking patients for anemia before surgery and treating them with iron or red-blood-cell-boosting drugs to cut down on transfusions in the operating room.
Drug-resistant staph bacteria picked up in ordinary community settings are increasingly acquiring "superbug" attributes and causing far more serious illnesses than they have in the past, doctors have reported. These germs used to be easier to treat than the dangerous forms of staph found in hospitals and nursing homes: a CDC study found that at least 10% of cases involving the most common community strain were able to evade the antibiotics typically used to treat them.