hospital impact

by Nick Jacobs

From MSN Money: "Patients in the highest-rated, five-star hospitals in the United States are at a 65 percent lower chance of dying than patients in the lowest-rated, one-star hospitals, according to a study released by HealthGrades, a health-care ratings company. If all hospitals included in the study performed at the five-star level, the lives of more than 273,000 Medicare patients could have potentially been saved over a two year period. Fifty percent of these potentially preventable deaths were associated with four diagnoses: heart failure, community acquired pneumonia, sepsis and respiratory failure."

From "Health Daily News:"

Today, some health care executives, insurers and physicians are . . . fully embracing disclosure and apologies, not only because they believe it will reduce malpractice claims, but also because it's ethically the right thing to do."

Larry Dossey, M.D. from "Reinventing Medicine," "For more than a century the profession of medicine has tried to become increasingly scientific and technical, because this is where we believed the future of healing lay. Now a monumental shift is occurring, empowered by the evidence that consciousness is a powerful factor in the world."

Finally, Dr. Karen Donelan, Senior Scientist in Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital, gave a wonderful description of her experience in the health care system. A dear member of her family received timely access when the pcp's answering service worked, the receptionist, technician and doctor all showed compassion and demonstrated their desire to be there for the family and the patient. At every step information and decisions were shared, so much so that the family felt part of the care team, and finally the doctors were highly trained and had all of the right tools. She described this as truly, significantly different care than they had ever observed with other family members. According to Dr. Donelan, "It was seamless, high quality , accessible, compassionate and expert with a fully disclosed price and plan of treatment."

It was the care that her dog, Rico was given by the vet. Surprised, don't be.