Corpus Christi, TX-based Christus Spohn Hospital South is investigating how up to 17 babies in a neonatal intensive care unit received overdoses of the blood thinner heparin. One of the babies died, and nursing staff at the hospital discovered the problem two days after the medication is believed to have been first administered. Heparin came into the public spotlight in 2007 when newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid nearly died after receiving an overdose at a Los Angeles hospital.
Children's Hospital of Alabama has filed paperwork with the State Health Planning and Development Agency to seek permission to replace the heart of its medical center as part of an almost half-billion-dollar modernization and expansion. Children's Hospital officials said a new main hospital is needed to replace an outdated building that lacks space for technology and patient growth. Officials want a license to operate a 332-bed medical center, according to the certificate of need application.
Although consumer-driven health plans have been hailed as a tool to help control costs, they actually motivate plan members to forgo care and discontinue drugs to treat chronic medical problems, according to two new studies by Oregon researchers. The research has found people enrolled in these plans were more likely to quit taking drugs that control high blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications than participants with more robust medical coverage.
A grant from Lake County, OH, will let Lake Hospital System offer mental health services in the emergency departments at Lake East and Lake West hospitals. The $630,000 grant intends to shorten or eliminate the need to hospitalize people who are experiencing a psychiatric crisis.
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.