In recent years, nurses have sounded the alarm about workplace violence, most of it committed by patients. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, half of all nonfatal injuries resulting from workplace assaults occur in healthcare and social service settings. Nurses and other personal care workers bear the brunt of such attacks, with 25 injuries annually resulting in days off from work for every 10,000 full-time workers. Nurses now say the nationwide nursing shortage is making matters worse, because understaffing increases the risk of violent incidents.
The Loudoun County, VA, Board of Supervisors has asked the operators of two clinics for low-income patients to consider collaborating more closely and perhaps merging in the hopes of improving healthcare for the county's poorest residents. The Loudoun Community Health Center and the Loudoun Free Clinic provide medical services to hundreds of uninsured and underinsured county residents each year. Representatives of the two clinics say that although they are open to the possibility of merging, it could have a host of unintended consequences that could weaken their ability to serve a growing need.
Several Georgia lawmakers and officials at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital expressed outrage over a two-year, $1.2 million contract awarded interim hospital CEO Pam Stephenson. Some are calling for a state investigation and her resignation from hospital leadership posts. Stephenson's contract was sealed shortly before the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority was to hand over control of the hospital to a new nonprofit corporation. The corporation has now announced four finalists for the CEO position, and Stephenson was not among them. Officials have blasted Stephenson's contract, saying it was deliberately crafted away from public scrutiny.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has developed more than 80 electronic greetings to spread health information. More than 30,000 "Health-e-Cards" have been sent since the agency started posting them on its Web site in February 2007. The cards take research-based health information that the CDC has used in more traditional ways and put it into links inside cards for people to send to friends, family and co-workers. About one-third of the E-cards' recipients have clicked through the card into the agency's Web site for more information, CDC officials said.
The long-sought Prince George's County (MD) Hospital Authority has held its first meeting, adopting bylaws and deciding to hire at least two consultants to advise members as they attempt to sell the county's hospital system. The Authority will accept bids from healthcare companies interested in taking over the system, which comprises Prince George's Hospital Center, Laurel Regional Hospital, Bowie Health Campus, and two nursing homes. The system is owned by the county and managed by Dimensions Healthcare System.
As many as 17 newborn babies in the neonatal intensive care unit of a Texas hospital were given overdoses of the blood thinner heparin, prompting an investigation by officials there. Nursing staff at Christus Spohn Hospital South in Corpus Christi discovered the error earlier this week, two days after a concentrated form of the medication is believed to have been administered.