SAN FRANCISCO — For years, the check-in process in the urgent care center of this city's large, downtown hospital was reminiscent of a visit to the DMV. The ailing and sick walked in, pulled a number, took a seat and waited to be called. Many grew impatient and exasperated. Now, patients at San Francisco General Hospital are greeted by a smiling face and a helping hand to guide them along the path to getting care. It's one of a series of customer-friendly touches being added at the 156-year-old institution by a newly named "chief patient experience officer."
Two competing metro Detroit hospital systems are moving forward with new, smaller versions of once-shelved plans for suburban expansion. The three-hospital Beaumont Health System recently dusted off a 5-year-old plan for constructing a North Pavilion addition at its main campus in Royal Oak with a new emergency room department. At the same time, the Detroit Medical Center plans to build a $42-million children's outpatient specialty center in Troy. The future Children's Hospital of Michigan Specialty Center-Troy would be built in lieu of DMC's now-canceled $50-million Royal Oak outpatient center that was to serve both children and adults.
Doctors at Milwaukee Health Services have not had access to the medical records of 40,000 patients since June 30, when an Atlanta company cut off the community health center's access to its electronic medical records after their contract ended. Milwaukee Health Services sued Business Computer Applications Inc., the Atlanta company, last week in federal court and is seeking a court order to restore access to patients' medical records. The records include patients' medications, problem lists, allergies, immunization records, treatment plans and other clinical information. The doctors and other health care providers at the community health center can get key information, such as medication lists and lab results, from pharmacies and other sources, said Tito Izard, a physician and chief executive of Milwaukee Health Services.
SALEM, Ore. — With 400,000 uninsured Oregonians expected to get health insurance in the coming years, the state and medical community are scrambling to make sure there are doctors, nurses and other health care providers available to treat them. Many of Oregon's rural and minority communities already are short of the recommended doctor-patient ratios — a problem that will only get worse when most Americans are required to have health coverage beginning Jan. 1. With an eye on the coming tide of newly insured residents, state lawmakers this year approved scholarships and loan repayment programs designed to encourage medical school graduates to practice in underserved areas instead of the flashier urban centers.
Many people forget to take their prescribed medications and wind up at risk of serious illness. Dr. Rajiv Shah, a physician and founder of the Minneapolis tech firm MyMeds, wants to use a little psychology and a smartphone app to gently nudge patients to take their pills. "This is considered one of the biggest problems in health care today," said Shah, 41, who juggles his work as a full-time kidney specialist at Intermed Consultants in Edina with being the CEO of MyMeds.
You often don't get what you pay for?at least when it comes to hip- or knee-replacement surgeries. A new study of 2,750 hospitals across the U.S. found a staggering disparity between what the hospitals officially charge for hip- and knee-replacement surgeries before any insurance adjustments. One low-volume hospital in California officially charges a whopping $223,373 for such surgeries, while a high-volume hospital in Akron charges just $15,465, according to a survey by the NerdWallet Health cost-comparison Web site. And hospitals that performed more than 200 of those surgeries annually tended to have lower rates of patients readmitted for complications such as infections than hospitals that did fewer procedures, the survey found.