Kaiser Permanente became the first healthcare provider in Oregon to issue a public report on the quality of care at its outpatient medical offices. The results, which compare clinics on nine quality measures, are available online. The reports do not identify ratings for individual medical providers. The Oakland, Calif.-based health system has posted clinic-by-clinic quality results about one year ahead of a regional effort to publish quality information about Oregon medical offices.
Washington Hospital in Fremont was fined $25,000 by the California Department of Public Health because a heart patient treated there last year was given the wrong drugs and died. The 87-year-old patient was mistakenly given another patient's methadone and desipramine--often used to treat drug addicts--along with two other incorrect medications. Washington Hospital was one of 11 in California cited and fined because of errors that caused death or injury to patients.
A small, but worrisome number of facelift patients became infected with the antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA, a new study reports. About one half of 1 percent of people undergoing facelifts developed the so-called "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection, doctors from Lennox Hill-Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital in New York City reported.
Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital is leading the Southeast in reducing the number of urinary tract infections among hospital patients. Commonly, the catherization process has been cited as the reason most people develop infections while in a healthcare facility. Employees at ECM have developed a procedure that reduces the rate of infection by more than half.
Ohio State University Medical Center made it a bit easier to find hospital data that consumers would be interested in. The hospital put this information--most of which it already reports to the federal government--on its Web site. The hospital is the first in the Columbus area to post this information online. The other three hospital systems said that they plan to do so in the coming months. The goal, OSU officials say, is to give consumers more information so they can make better choices about where they get their healthcare.
Hospitals that participate in clinical trials appear to provide better care for patients with heart attacks or other acute heart events and have lower death rates than hospitals that do not participate in clinical trials, according to a new report.