Minorities are more likely than white patients to rate their healthcare as fair or poor, according to researchers at Harvard University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that surveyed 4,334 adults. Researchers asked patients such questions as how quickly they were able to get an appointment and whether their doctor explained things in a way the patient could understand. Although whites routinely rated their experience higher, minority patients still had largely favorable views of their care.
The UNC Board of Governors endorsed a plan by the state's two public medical schools to add students and create regional campuses to prepare for an expected doctor shortage. The plan calls for UNC-Chapel Hill to expand first-year enrollment at its medical school by 230 students in phases starting in 2009. The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University would expand its first-year enrollment to 120. Also, UNC-CH would develop facilities in Charlotte and Asheville, where 70 students would complete their last two years of medical education. And ECU would expand opportunities for students to spend their third and fourth years in clinics in areas of Eastern North Carolina that need more doctors. The cumulative cost of the plan is expected to be about $450 million.
After decades of poking and prodding patients at all hours, hospitals are waking up to the notion that sick people need sleep. WakeMed Health & Hospitals now observes nightly quiet hours at its facilities starting at 8 p.m. Several intensive care units at hospitals across the region offer daily quiet time. It's a welcome peace amid the persistent activity in the ICU, where nurses or other medical staff sometimes come to the bedside as often as every 20 minutes.
Mollie Wilmot Children's Center is under construction near St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, FL, and the $12.5 million center will seek to improve children's healthcare by focusing solely on them. The center is expected to open in April.
A patient's death after falling from his bed in a Florida emergency room has raised questions about a common practice of hospitals hiring outside, fill-in nurses on a regular basis. Critics of the practice, including nurses' groups and some industry officials, say medical care for patients may suffer when hospitals rely too heavily on short-term, temporary nurses who may not know a facility's system, patients, personnel or building as well as staff nurses. An estimated one in eight registered nurses in Florida hospitals were agency fill-ins, a survey found last year.
Dozen of healthcare clinics are now operating in schools around Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati funds the centers, and this month it will start taking applications to add six new centers at local schools over the next three years. So far, the program has been open only to schools that serve students in grades K-8. The next round of applications will be open to high schools. A study sponsored by the foundation found the centers improve students' health.
A reprieve for a low-income clinic in Spokane has proved to be short-lived. Operators of the People's Clinic say it will close on May 15. The 1,500 student and low-income patients are being directed to other potential sources of healthcare, and efforts are being made for nurse-practitioners at the clinic to work elsewhere. The clinic has been run by the Washington State University Intercollegiate College of Nursing. It stopped taking new patients at the end of last month.
Horst and Luisa Ferrero took their intelligent, healthy and happy 3-year-old, Sebastian, in for a medical exam last October. Two days later he was dead, killed by a series of medical errors that began with a massive drug overdose. They have formed the Sebastian Ferrero Foundation in the hopes of preventing similar accidents, and hope to help build a $300 million, 125-bed standalone children's hospital in Gainesville within five years.
Sure, your organization offers sophisticated, compassionate care. But the patients of tomorrow will want much more than that. Here's how some hospitals are creating facilities for a new vision of healthcare. +
Earlier this year Palomar Pomerado Health gained national attention when it created a virtual version of its planned $773 million "hospital of the future." +
Health plans and the healthcare industry as a whole are relying more on technology to help lower costs and improve the quality of care. But technology poses the risk of security breaches and HIPAA violations. +
ProMedica Health System, an Ohio-based 10 hospital network, has signed with McKesson for an array of clinical software, pharmacy automation and medication distribution services. ProMedica hopes to enhance patient safety and help improve operational efficiencies and reduce healthcare costs.
"This initiative is being driven first by patient safety and quality of service," said Michael Ruhlen, M.D., vice president, medical informatics at ProMedica.
