A company called Arrowsight is bringing hospitals struggling with hand-washing compliance a solution that has worked in food processing and manufacturing plants: a video surveillance system that measures adherence to hand-washing rules and provides hospitals with quick feedback on the laggards. In a pilot launched in January of 2007, the company says its hospital video auditing service boosted hand-hygiene compliance to 90% from 38% in three months.
Nearly 4.3 million square feet of multi-tenant office space is under construction throughout the Charlotte area, as the residential, industrial, and commercial real estate lag. Projects include physicians' offices, specialty clinics, and imaging centers, as well as outpatient facilities. And the competition between general office developers and health facility developers is getting fierce.
A Delaware bankruptcy judge agreed to move Hawaii Medical Center LLC's Chapter 11 case to Hawaii, answering the requests of such creditors as the group of nuns who used to run the company's two hospitals on Oahu.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is clashing with the city's big landlords, who will try to tank the $887 million redo of San Francisco General Hospital that goes before voters in November. The fight stems from an unrelated disagreement involving sewer charges, and although the hospital measure currently has 75% approval with voters, city officials are worried a well-financed campaign against it could make for a close outcome.
Nearly one-third of Connecticut physicians are considering changing jobs or moving out of state because of dissatisfaction with the state's practice environment, according to a survey of 1,077 practicing doctors commissioned by the Connecticut State Medical Society. Among doctors' chief complaints: longer hours while patients wait weeks for appointments, malpractice costs, managed care restrictions, and a high cost of living.
A new report has found that health insurance premiums are increasing faster than employees' wages in Indianapolis, and insurance companies are offering less coverage. Premiums have increase by 83.4% from 2000 to 2007—during that time, workers' salaries have increased by just 11.4%.
A recent delegation of Nashville executives went to Germany, which this summer became the largest economy to achieve universal health coverage, to examine the policy initiatives and explore trading opportunities. The trip coincides with a march by more than 50,000 doctors and nurses, who have not received a raise in more than five years.
Congress has approved legislation that would require private insurers to provide the same level of benefits for mental illness as they do for physical illness. The measure has been lauded by advocates as a great shift in the nation's understanding of mental health, and it received strong bipartisan support in Congress and has the backing of business, insurance companies, health advocates, the medical community, and the White House.
The Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine is causing a stir nationwide, as an essay looks to turn anger toward the direction of the medical profession into solutions to fix it. Particularly drawing ire is a section that says modern physicians should be working to keep patients out of medical centers.
The Joint Commission has informed hospitals that they must adopt measures to prevent medication errors relating to blood thinners—nearly 60,000 such errors have been reported, which include 28 deaths in recent years. The Commission is urging hospitals to monitor patients more closely and adopt bar-code technology for medicines.
