Harvard School of Public Health professor Lucian L. Leape, MD, is one of the nation's top experts on patient safety. Nearly 20 years ago, his research startled the nation with such findings as one of every 200 patients admitted to a hospital died as a result of a hospital mistake. Leape now says that while the industry has made great strides to improve patient safety, much more needs to be done. Part of the solution is to automate and hand off some of the non-care functions so that healthcare professionals can spend more time engaging with and treating patients, Leape said recently during the annual congress of the National Patient Safety Foundation.
Some hospitals are taking steps to improve safety and reduce their own legal liability from mishaps that lead to higher rates of death, complications, and medical errors that occur when treating patients during thinly staffed off hours. Hospitals are hiring physicians known as nocturnists, who work only night shifts, and some hospitals have begun staffing intensive-care units round-the-clock with critical-care specialists who do double-duty coping with a crisis anywhere in the hospital. And new policies improve communications at the hand-off between the day and night shifts.
Higher levels of medical care spending do not improve patients' perceptions of the care they receive, according to University of Massachusetts researchers who conducted a survey of Medicare beneficiaries. Researchers surveyed 2,515 Medicare beneficiaries about their perceptions of healthcare quality and compared their answers to per capita spending in various regions across the United States. There was a strong link between per capita spending and receiving more medical care, such as average number of ambulatory visits to physicians in the past year. But seven of the 10 measures of patients' perception of healthcare quality—such as unmet needs for tests and treatment, and spending enough time with doctors—were unrelated to expenditures, according to researchers.
In 2007, Florida Hospital rolled out a bold marketing campaign for two of its campuses: Emergency-room patients would be seen by a doctor within one hour of arrival. A year later, neither ER has come close to achieving that one-hour maximum wait for all patients. A major goal of the new Cover Florida health-plan initiative is to reduce ER crowding by providing affordable insurance to the state's 3.8 million uninsured. But ER crowding and wait times are unlikely to improve soon, experts say. That's especially true in Central Florida, where the economy and the population continue to expand at faster-than-average rates.
Six months after the mother of Kanye West died following liposuction and breast implant surgery, California lawmakers and physicians are urging greater protections for patients undergoing cosmetic surgery. Such surgeries are increasingly done outside hospital settings in outpatient clinics, where a doctor can avoid the rigorous reviews. More than a decade ago, California pushed to regulate outpatient surgical centers amid high-profile reports that patients were critically injured or dying during procedures.
Legislators passed a law that said such centers must be accredited by an agency recognized by the state. But critics say the law has not been effective.
The National Health Service has recently barred British physicians from wearing neckties, jewelry, and long sleeves, all in the name of disease prevention. Officials there are particularly concerned about antibiotic-resistant diseases such as MRSA. Some U.S. doctors find the move strange, and say there are better ways to prevent the spread of germs to patients.