The only hospital emergency room in East St. Louis has now closed. The owners of Kenneth Hall Regional Hospital had been losing millions and won state approval last month to close the long-troubled hospital. No date had been announced for the closure, but it came Tuesday, at 7 a.m., in part because the air conditioning wasn't working at Kenneth Hall, said Ronda Sauget, a spokeswoman for the company that owns the hospital. "That's one reason we closed it today," she said. "It is what it is. It's unfortunate the air conditioning doesn't work." Anyone coming to the hospital in need of emergency care is being told to go to Touchette Regional Hospital, five miles away in Centreville.
Can a virtual nurse named Louise help keep patients from landing back in the hospital after they are discharged? The animated character on a computer screen, who explains medical instructions, is one of several new strategies hospitals are using to help patients make the transition to home, including sending patients off with a "Home with Meds" packet of medications and having real-life case managers and nurses monitor patients by phone. It's part of a push to reduce the 4.4 million hospital stays that are a result of potentially preventable re-admissions, which add more than $30 billion a year to the nation's health-care tab, or $1 of every $10 spent on hospital care, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. With hospital stays shorter than they used to be, patients may be sent home in frailer states. They may not understand instructions on how to take care of themselves and face unexpected medical problems after leaving the hospital. More than a third of patients don't get the lab tests, specialist referrals or follow-up care they need.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that pension and healthcare costs are eating the U.S. military alive. And the Pentagon predicts that the cost of taking care of its troops and retirees will keep growing. Retired Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro gets a lot of hate mail, because he's talking about something a whole lot of people don't want to hear about: the rising costs of military health and pension benefits. "We in the Department of Defense are on the same path that General Motors found itself on," he says. Punaro, a former Marine, is a member of the Defense Business Board, a group that advises the Pentagon on its financial operations. "General Motors did not start out to be a healthcare company that occasionally built an automobile," he says. "Today, we're on the path in the Department of Defense to turn it into a benefits company that may occasionally kill a terrorist."
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality plans to survey 300 clinicians to identify and understand the barriers that Medicaid providers encounter in deploying and becoming meaningful users of electronic health records. Once the data is collected, AHRQ will develop technical assistance and support for putting EHR systems into operation in provider practices or upgrading existing systems. The project will run over two years, according to an announcement in the June 3 Federal Register. Furthermore, the information from the focus groups will also inform the development of stage 2 and 3 of meaningful use criteria. The agency will also separate up to 89 of the clinicians into 13 focus groups based on whether they have adopted an EHR and those who have not and one group of private practice dentists. AHRQ will also consider factors in their decision to adopt EHRs or not.
After years of weighing in on issues like secondhand tobacco smoke and radon exposure, Jonathan Samet, MD, is accustomed to controversy. And last week, Samet, a University of Southern California physician and epidemiologist, found himself at the center of debate again as chairman of a World Health Organization committee ruling on the health effects of cellphone use. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which consisted of 31 scientists from 14 countries, concluded that cellphones are "possibly carcinogenic," putting the devices in the same category as about 260 chemicals, pesticides and other substances, including coffee, that might lead to certain cancers. The finding, which is the first time a major health organization has concluded there is a possible risk to cellphone use, drew an immediate rebuke from the cellphone industry. It also put Samet, who has a presidential appointment to the National Cancer Institute's advisory board, at odds with two of the country's top cancer groups. The American Cancer Society said the findings were based on flawed data and should be interpreted with "great care." More surprising is the fact that a representative from the National Cancer Institute skipped the vote. The institute says the committee member will join dissenters in writing a minority opinion.
A raft of studies has documented higher rates of death, complications and medical errors affecting patients treated at night or on weekends. “After normal working hours it’s mostly maintenance,” said Jessie Gruman, 56, director of the Washington-based Center for Advancing Health, a nonprofit health-policy group.“There’s a real sense of vulnerability you have at night when you know things are not happening at full speed. There’s less nursing care, less access to a doctor and more demands on doctors,” added Gruman, a veteran of more than 35 years of hospitalizations to treat cancer-related illnesses. To bridge the chasm between the day and night shifts, hospitals from Syracuse to Seattle are hiring a new breed of subspecialist called a “nocturnist” — an experienced doctor who works overnight taking care of patients outside the emergency room. The growing demand for these physicians, who typically work fewer hours and command higher