Bright, beautiful lobbies featuring an atrium filled with local flora. Rooms with big windows and access to outdoor gardens. Dining options served up by one of the top chefs in the world. Innovative new hospital designs have changed patients' experiences and expectations of what a hospital should be. These sleek buildings have design features found in many high-end hotels—and they are built with the express intention not just of increasing patient satisfaction but of reducing costs and improving outcomes. Research has shown that hospitals that feature new designs and amenities send patient satisfaction scores vaulting skyward
In an era of surging competition, declining admissions and shrinking spending, it's becoming increasingly common for hospitals to have more than one name on the door. Many hospitals and systems are teaming up to attract patients, cut costs and polish their reputation for excellence, as Suburban did when it agreed to merge with Johns Hopkins, some 40 miles away in Baltimore, six years ago. Brand-name medical centers and their community counterparts benefit in different ways, experts say. "The big brands extend their geographic reach and presence. Smaller hospitals bask in reflected glory," says Stuart Seides, physician executive director of MedStar Heart & Vascular Institute in the District of Columbia, which in 2013 formed a "clinical and research alliance" with Cleveland Clinic.
What are some of the biggest keys to reducing diagnostic error? Communication and teamwork, according to Mark Graber, MD, senior fellow at RTI International.
On an average day, about 1 in every 25 hospital patients gets sick from the hospital itself. How? By contracting what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls a healthcare-associated infection (HAI). When a patient is already sick, one of these infections can be disastrous for their prognosis, and in 2011, 75,000 of the 722,000 patients who developed an HAI died during their hospital stay. To call attention to this problem, Consumer Reports ranked hospitals across the United States based on the frequency of MRSA and C. diff, the two most common and deadly HAIs, along with three other bugs.
Alabaster's Shelby Baptist Medical Center is now officially part of a joint company operating under the leadership of Baptist Health System and Tenet Healthcare after the two companies finalized their mergers on Oct. 2. The joint venture includes all Baptist Health System hospitals, including Shelby Baptist, Tenet's Brookwood Medical Center and each organization's related businesses. Under the joint venture arrangement, Tenet, which previously was the parent company of Brookwood, will be the majority partner and will manage the network's operations. The new system includes more than 1,700 licensed beds, nine outpatient centers, 68 physician clinics delivering primary and specialty care, more than 7,000 employees and approximately 1,500 affiliated physicians.
A new tool for California health-care shoppers shows how widely prices can range for medical procedures county by county, and that for many procedures, health costs in the central San Joaquin Valley are some of the lowest in the state. Take the cost for a total knee replacement. It costs less on average to have knee surgery in the Valley than anywhere in the state, according to California Healthcare Compare, a new website. In Fresno, Kings and Madera counties, the average cost is $21,612. The highest cost for a total knee replacement in California is in Alameda County, where the average cost is $55,542.