The University of North Carolina Center for Women's Mood Disorders is opening a weekly outpatient clinic at Raleigh-based Rex Hospital for women with postpartum depression. Rex is part of the UNC Health Care System. In addition, on Nov. 3 a six-bed inpatient unit for women with the illness will open at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill. The rooms will come equipped with gliders for rocking babies and breast pumps for nursing mothers. There will be space for extended visits with their children, therapy for the patient and her family, and help from lactation consultants and doctors.
Powerful antibiotic drugs are normally injected once a day—a problem for patients who contract infections in hospital wards and are sent home. But a new study found that an experimental antibiotic may work just as well when given in one gigantic dose, marking progress in the treatment of drug-resistant infections, including MRSA. The research was conducted by Targanta Therapeutics Corp., a company that has applied to sell the antibiotic, oritavancin, in the U.S.
Amber Joy Milbrodt checked into Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital's emergency department on a Wednesday night, complaining of a fractured bone in her right leg. She spent all night and the next day waiting to see a doctor before giving up and leaving. Two weeks after her visit, she received a bill from Parkland for $162. Now Parkland officials, already on the defensive about wait times after a man died in the ER following a 19-hour wait in September, say the charge was appropriate because a nurse spent time assessing Milbrodt for triage.
Newborns needing intensive care can have private rooms when an expansion at Children's Hospital Central California is complete in November. The 21 rooms that will be the first in the state designed to offer newborns a peaceful environment free of noise from other babies and the traffic from healthcare professionals from shared wards. Nurses will be able to monitor a baby's condition by computer.
As the medical community debates the merits of the 80-hour limit on residents' work weeks, one challenge that has drawn attention is the patient "hand off." With residents working shorter hours, patients are more frequently transferred from one doctor who is leaving a shift to another who is starting, creating opportunities for miscommunication. But physicians at Johns Hopkins Hospital have developed a list of good surgical sign-out practices to help alleviate the problem.
Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to die in U.S. emergency rooms after a trauma than white patients are, according to new research.
In addition, uninsured ER patients are more likely to die compared with insured patients, according to the study. Compared with an insured white patient, equivalently injured black patients have 20% higher risk of dying, while Hispanic patients have a 51% increased odds of dying, Haider said.