At leading medical centers, patients in intensive care units are often managed by doctors specially trained to provide that care—but a new study raises questions about the benefits of that treatment. Patients managed by critical care physicians were at greater risk of dying than patients managed by doctors who lacked that training, according to researchers who examined data from 123 U.S. intensive care units. The results were immediately challenged by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, and researchers acknowledged that more study is needed.
Hospitalized children suffer too many infections and other preventable complications that extend their stays and cost millions, according to a study released by The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Researchers found that some complications occurred in up to 4% of children treated at 38 children's hospitals nationwide, and that children are three times more susceptible to infections in hospitals compared with adults. Better hand washing, sterilization, preventive antibiotic treatments and other safety techniques can help reduce hospital-based infections, according to researchers.
Eight hospitals in the Seattle area have promised to change their food to make it healthier for patients, staff and visitors. The hospitals have signed a Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge which "redefines healthy food beyond nutrition to include community and environmental health," said Holly Freishtat, Sustainable Food Specialist for Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center has settled charges that it left a paraplegic man crawling around downtown Los Angeles' skid row by agreeing to pay $1 million and be monitored by a former U.S. attorney for up to five years. The settlement marks the biggest so far in the city's efforts to crack down on hospitals and other institutions that "dump" patients along skid row. Kaiser agreed to a smaller settlement in 2007, and the L.A. city attorney's office said it is investigating more than a dozen other hospital and medical offices suspected of dumping.
Sudden infant death syndrome is one of the leading causes of death for children under age 1. British researchers say bacteria might be a contributing factor. A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet found potentially dangerous bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus and E coli in nearly half of all babies who died suddenly and unexpectedly at a London hospital between 1996 and 2005. A SIDS diagnosis means that no other cause of death can be found in an otherwise healthy infant who dies suddenly while sleeping. In the United States, SIDS kills more than 2,000 infants every year. In Britain, more than 200 children die every year of the syndrome.
Consumer Reports launched an online tool that lets users compare hospitals on their treatment of patients with life-threatening chronic illness, based on the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008. The New York Times reports that the data show the city's private teaching hospitals were among the most aggressive in the nation, ranking in the 94th percentile as a group, while the public hospitals landed in the 69th percentile.