Tag Archives: emergency room

Hospitals

Who’s Using the ER?

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The rising use of the emergency room is NOT coming from the uninsured, but from "those whose incomes put them at more than four times the poverty level, and who typically get their care at a doctor's office." While use of ERs grew by 26% from 1996 and 2004, "the percentage of uninsured ER patients remained flat, at roughly 15%."

"This has important implications for the national health-reform push. If you give everyone insurance, there are going to be more people trying to get in to see primary-care doctors – and, perhaps, heading to the emergency room when they can't get an appointment."

Hospitals

ERs in Massachusetts

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The Boston Globe reports that the use of hospital emergency rooms is soaring in Massachusetts:

The cost of caring for ER patients has soared 17 percent over two years, despite efforts to direct patients with non-urgent problems to primary care doctors instead, according to new state data. [Nearly half of the 2.5 million ER visits in 2007] didn't require immediate treatment, or could have been treated in a doctors' office.

Several physicians and policy makers said the state information, along with other new data from Harvard researchers, suggests that emergency room crowding and rising costs will not be solved by providing people with health insurance alone, despite optimistic talk by politicians who advocated for the law.

"Despite optimistic talk by politicians" could be the theme song for the next four years.

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses – 2009/4/7

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Obesity update: The tablescape (the placement and size of dishes, bowls, silverware and drinking glasses) can increase consumption by more than 20 percent. 

Why do we need Washington? Walgreens is offering free health care to the jobless and the uninsured.

What happens when it's free: Austin's ERs got 2,678 visits from 9 people over 6 years.

Keeping prices up: Some drug companies are paying other drug companies to keep generic drugs off the market.

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses – 2009/3/31

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Broken Heart

Doctor: Natasha Richardson might be alive today if her skiing accident were in America rather than Canada.

A 1% increase in the tax on soft drinks lowers the average body mass index (BMI) by .003 points – it’s significant, but very small.

86,000 Americans wind up in the emergency room every year because they trip over their pets.

Only 1.5 percent of acute care hospitals have comprehensive electronic medical records systems.

Hospitals

Parkland Gets Better at Delivering Babies

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Newborn FootprintWe have previously reported on the dire results of rationing by waiting at this Dallas hospital's emergency room here, here, here, here and here. But we have also reported on its amazing success at delivering more babies than any other facility in the country [here]. With 70% Hispanic, 90% minority, all poor, and an undetermined percent illegal, Parkland has half the infant mortality rate as the nation as a whole.

The new finding, to be published in Obstetrics and Gynecology is that Parkland's rate of premature births (4.9%) is less than half the national average (10.1%).

Health Care Costs

Rationing by Waiting

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They’ve improved. From one in four patients giving up and leaving before treatment, they are now down to one in seven. We have previously reported on conditions at Dallas County’s Parkland Hospital here, here, here and here. This is from an article in the Dallas Morning News:

Parkland determined that its sickest ER patients last year waited an average of 2.7 hours to see a doctor and an additional 10.7 hours being treated or waiting for a hospital bed. Patients who were not as sick waited an average of 5.6 hours for care and an additional 4.8 hours being treated and discharged.

Last month, Parkland said, 14 percent of ER patients left without seeing a physician, compared with the 24 percent who walked away in July. “[The new system] already has made a significant impact on patients,” said Dr. Ron Anderson, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer.

Hospitals

Parkland Emergency Room Follow-up

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Following our post of the personal experience of a loyal reader who spent a day at Parkland Memorial Hospital’s emergency room, a Dallas restaurateur waited 19 hours in the ER before dying. As reported by the Dallas Morning News:

  • The patient was classified as “urgent” after one hour, but “no hospital staffer had so much as checked a pulse” for more than 13 hours.
  • Patients admitted to the hospital through the ER last year waited an average of 12 hours and 42 minutes for an inpatient bed.
  • More than one in 10 patients leaves the hospital before seeing a doctor.
  • According to the CEO Ron Anderson, “each morning….there are about 18, 19, 20 patients down in the ER who have been admitted and have been there all night long because there are no beds upstairs.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiLziusKW4s

All Night Long