Tag: "emergency room"

Traffic to Mass Safety-net Clinics Up 31%

For those with short memories, let’s review the bidding. The argument for the Massachusetts health plan was: Instead of providing free care to the uninsured at emergency rooms and safety-net clinics let’s insure them so that they can get more accessible, less costly care from regular physicians. The result: traffic to hospital emergency rooms in Massachusetts is higher than ever and now this:

The report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the number of patients treated at the health centers rose 31 percent from 2005 to 2009. During the same period, the percent of uninsured patients at the clinics declined from 35.5 percent to about 20 percent.

Aug 10, 2011 | 4 comments | by

Biotronik, Delayed Operations, Scott Brown, Caffeine

95 percent who had a heart device implanted at the hospital center got one made by Biotronik. [The company hires doctors] as consultants, paying them fees as high as $5,000 a month.

Surgeons say patients in some parts of England have spent months waiting in pain because of delayed operations.

Dems ask for Scott Brown’s health records.

Caffeine consumption is genetic.

Apr 11, 2011 | 4 comments | by

Bad News for Electronic Medical Records

The percentage of doctors saying that the financial benefits of electronic records outweigh the costs fell to 64% from 71% last year. And the percentage saying the patient-care benefits justified the financial investment fell to 68% from 73%. This year’s survey also found doctors were less likely to agree that electronic records can help reduce medical errors, improve efficiency and lower costs. And a greater proportion of physicians said electronic records slow them down and don’t achieve a measurable financial impact.

Full article on doctors’ views of electronic medical records.

Mar 04, 2011 | 7 comments | by

The Nation’s Fifth-Busiest Emergency Room

Maimonides Medical Center…a Borough Park hospital known for its cardiac and stroke care…saw 109,925 patients in 2009 — the year of the flu pandemic — up from 97,613 in 2008 and 81,931 in 2005… Like the neighborhoods around it, Maimonides is filled with immigrants — the hospital employs 46 patient representatives who speak a total of 70 languages…

In the nonurgent wing, patients typically see a doctor within 20 minutes. But they can lie on gurneys a long time waiting for tests and re-examinations — the median emergency room stay last year was 3.72 hours. The room is so packed that nurses, doctors and technicians squeeze past quadrupled-up gurneys in each bay, colliding in a dance of you first; no, you first.

Full article on how the nation’s emergency rooms are busier than ever.

Oct 05, 2010 | 5 comments | by

Expect Emergency Room Visits to Soar

One of the most oft-repeated arguments for health reform is that uninsured patients make costly and delayed trips to the ER when they do not have a health plan that pays for care at physicians’ offices. Insure the uninsured, it is said, and they will decrease their reliance on the ER and get prompter, less costly care elsewhere.

Yet, as an AP story reported the other day, ER traffic in Massachusetts is higher than ever before. And as I predicted at the Health Affairs Blog, the number of such visits under the new national health reform is likely to soar.

Read More » »

Jul 21, 2010 | 13 comments | by

Emergency Room “Frequent Fliers” Have Health Insurance

A survey of the literature found 85% of emergency room “frequent fliers” have health insurance.  Most of these had seen a primary care physician in the past year.

Sixty percent of frequent ER users (four or more visits per year) were enrolled in public coverage — either Medicaid or Medicare — compared with only 36% of occasional emergency room users.

Apr 16, 2010 | 7 comments | by

More Quality Competition

Across the nation, hospitals are trumpeting shortened wait times in ERs in hopes of attracting more patients:

  • In Arizona, Scottsdale Healthcare System advertises emergency room wait times for its four hospitals online and on a flat screen in each hospital’s emergency waiting room.
  • Edward Hospital in Naperville, Ill., sends text messages back to prospective patients with its wait times.
  • Some Healthcare Corp. of America hospitals in west Florida post wait times on billboards, according to reports from the St. Petersburg Times. “Accidents happen fast. Emergency care should, too,” reads one electronic billboard, which also lists wait times.
  • Other hospitals are testing a service where patients register online and pay a fee to hold their spot while they wait at home.
  • The Hospital of Central Connecticut has an iPhone application listing wait times and directions to the hospital.

Full article on more efficient hospital emergency rooms.

Mar 23, 2010 | 6 comments | by

One of the Nation’s Most Efficient Emergency Rooms

The old system whereby patients were triaged by a nurse, registered by a clerk and then sent back to the triage nurse and the waiting room was thrown out. Instead, hospital staff spend much of their time moving around the patients. For example, blood tests and blood pressure tests are now often done in the waiting room and a mobile suture cart means patients can be stitched up where they sit.

Full article on Seven Oaks ER.

Mar 08, 2010 | 3 comments | by

Can You Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk at the Same Time?

Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text.

Full article on distracted walking.

distracted-walking

Jan 19, 2010 | 4 comments | by

Hits & Misses – 2009/10/1

Can evolution run in reverse? No.

Can aging be reversed? Maybe.

Rise in melanoma explained: Doctors are misdiagnosing benign lesions as early-stage malignant cancers.

The average emergency room doctor is interrupted 10 times an hour. In aeronautics, interruptions and distractions are the most common cause of pilot error.

What are probiotics (found, e.g., in Dannon yogurt) good for? Reducing diarrhea: yes. Lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, preventing cavities, reducing cancer risks and the duration of colds: unclear.

For baby delivery, does it matter where a doctor was trained? Yes.

Most common cause of injury requiring medical attention? Falling down.

First-born siblings tend to be more risk-averse: last-born siblings tend to be bigger risk takers.

Oct 01, 2009 | 4 comments | by
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