Every year, an estimated 4,000 cases of "retained surgical items," as they are known in the medical world, are reported in the United States. The vast majority are gauzelike sponges used to soak up blood. During a long operation, doctors may stuff dozens of them inside a patient to control bleeding. In recent years, new technology and sponge-counting methods have made it easier to remedy the problem. But many hospitals have resisted, despite the fact that groups like the Association of Operating Room Nurses and the American College of Surgeons have called on hospitals to update their practices. As a result, patients are left at risk, said Dr. Verna C. Gibbs, a professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.
Hospitals in Minnesota are experiencing a new wave of consolidation. Sixteen independent hospitals have become affiliated with health systems like Sanford Health, Essentia Health and Mayo Clinic since 2005, according to the Minnesota Hospital Association. A 17th, in Virginia, is set to join Essentia in November. The trend is especially prevalent outstate, since much of the urban consolidation happened a decade or more ago. Of the 148 hospitals in Minnesota, according to the hospital association, only 42 remain independent. The push toward consolidation seems inevitable. But in the communities where it took place there is disagreement over whether such mergers were good or bad for patients.
More than 200 trauma centers have opened since 2009 in more than 20 states, and another 75 hospitals are seeking approvals, according to data collected by Kaiser Health News from state health agencies. States with the greatest number of new centers include Texas, Alabama, Arizona and California. The growth reverses more than a decade of closures in the 1990s and early 2000s. Leading the trend is Nashville-based HCA, according to state data. Since 2009, it has added or is planning to add about 20 trauma centers, including almost a dozen in Texas and Florida, as part of an expansion of its emergency room business. Another for-profit hospital chain, Community Health Systems, added seven trauma centers in the past three years.
Given that the healthcare overhaul remains a lightning rod—just last week, Oklahoma revised a lawsuit against it—even the most tentative discussions about carrying it out in Republican states tend to take place behind closed doors or "underground," as the leader of a healthcare advocacy group in the South put it. Only 13 states and the District of Columbia have formally committed to running their own exchanges. Most of the remaining states, 22 of them run by Republicans, are exploring their options. Along with Arizona, at least three of them—Mississippi, Nevada and New Mexico —have done enough planning to meet the November deadline should they decide to run their own exchanges, according to officials.
Medicare is the one health insurance plan that will cover virtually every American at some point in life, and Republican Mitt Romney is proposing the biggest changes since its creation nearly 50 years ago. With important details still hazy, The Associated Press asked the Romney campaign five questions about how his Medicare plan would affect consumers on critical matters of costs and benefits. Some of the questions remained unresolved after the campaign's responses. It may take electing Romney to find out how his plan would work.
With the future of Medicare on the line in the presidential election, The Associated Press asked the Obama campaign five questions about how his plans for seniors' healthcare would affect critical issues of costs and benefits. Unlike Romney, Obama is not calling for a major Medicare remake. Most of the president’s cost-cutting ideas are incorporated in his healthcare law, and will phase in unless Romney wins and makes good on his pledge to repeal it. Other Obama proposals are drawn from government advisory groups or bipartisan commissions seeking consensus on how to reduce deficits. AARP gave a thumbs-down to this year’s Obama budget, citing Medicare cost shifts.