Too much security can make a tense trip to the hospital that much more stressful, said Mike Angeline, the safety and security director for Mount Carmel Health System. "Do I want to put a 90-year-old lady through a metal detector?" Still, a Dispatch survey found that local hospitals are, in general, putting more precautions in place. Children's, for example, installed metal detectors in the emergency department of its new hospital, which opened this year. Visitors also must be included on a list of approved guests before they can access an upper floor to see an ill child. Even then, they have access only to that patient's unit.
After three years of legal wrangling, Boone Memorial Hospital in Madison is now an independently run, nonprofit organization. The change occurred July 1. Tommy Mullins, Boone Memorial's longtime chief executive officer, said becoming a nonprofit would speed the hospital's campaign to replace its aging facility. Boone Memorial's current facility was built in 1964. Administrators want to replace the old, cramped building with a new hospital. On Aug. 1, the hospital applied for a $34 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The loan would cover the full cost of the new building. "We should know in 60 days if we qualify, and for what amount," Mullins said.
Don't look now: The feds may be gaining on GOP governors who have balked at carrying out a key part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law. Opponents of the law say they won't set up new private health insurance markets called exchanges. But increasingly, it's looking as though Washington will just do it for them.That means federal officials could be calling the shots on some insurance issues that states traditionally manage, from handling consumer complaints to regulating plans that will serve many citizens.
Changes are afoot in Benefis Health System's emergency room after contract negotiations between the doctors and hospital administrators broke down this summer amid conflict over patient care, administrative oversight and other concerns. "We just want to be a better-functioning ER," said Laura Goldhahn, president of Benefis Hospitals.But ER doctors contend Goldhahn's assertion is just one of the many inaccurate depictions of the quality service they say their group of doctors has been providing to people from northcentral Montana for years.
Nurses at St. Louis University Hospital and Des Peres Hospital recently pulled off rare votes to organize workers at local health institutions. Collective bargaining talks have begun, and may not be easy. Nurses want not only increased pay and benefits, but also improved staffing ratios they say will enhance the quality of patient care. The votes came against a backdrop of setbacks for unionization efforts at local hospitals in recent years.
At a time when consumers are being discouraged from using expensive hospital ERs for non-emergencies, St. David's HealthCare has opened four urgent care centers in the past three years that bill patients more like emergency rooms do. But aside from the potential for consumers to be billed more than they expected, there's another wrinkle: St. David's said the centers are really a type of emergency department, although they are not intended to treat emergency patients.