LOL !
Posted on 10/27/2014 1:03:49 PM PDT by winoneforthegipper
University and Bellevue are affiliated. I always think of them as the same hospital although housed in different buildings.
Everything I said still holds. Just because a doctor or nurse is an employee of one hospital does not mean he/she is allowed to work in all other affiliated hospitals. I deal with this issue constantly in my current job (a different health care system). Credentials in one institution do not automatically transfer to all affiliated institutions. It also does not mean that insurance or electronic medical records transfer. All the other points would obviously still apply.
Maybe because patients don’t want to be in an “Ebola” hospital?
Have you heard that after Duncan died, Texas Presbyterian became like a ghost town, and many patients cancelled elective surgery?
Or perhaps it is the hospital’s liability insurer who has requested these changes.
No, I understand that - I hope they have cross-referenced medical information. We’ll see. They are superb hospitals.
Bingo! This is an enormous undertaking- costly in terms of patient safety and money. There is more to this story.
That may be what they're not telling us. It sure isn't the reason given. The reason given is so that they can be prepared for more Ebola cases. If the patient agrees with or requested the transfer, then that's fine. But it still requires a whole lot of work and isn't begin done just to make space available for patients who may or may not come.
Have you heard that after Duncan died, Texas Presbyterian became like a ghost town, and many patients cancelled elective surgery?
This is why just a few hundred cases of Ebola in this country may very well bring the healthcare system in the U.S. to its knees. If that's what's really happening at Bellevue--it could be--and what happened at Texas Health Presbyterian, then I think it's likely that it'll happen at any other hospital that gets an Ebola patient, and we're in for a bumpy ride.
Or perhaps it is the hospital’s liability insurer who has requested these changes.
Another possibility. But I don't think the hospital's liability insurer has the right to demand that critically ill patients be moved from one hospital to another. That doesn't mean, though, that they wouldn't/couldn't jack up the cost of the liability insurance.
In any case, to justify the move of a critically ill patient to another hospital, it needs to be in THAT PATIENT'S best interest. Not in the hospital's, and not in some other patient's best interest, much less some "possible" future patient's best interest.
So if Bellevue is making these transfers, they're not doing it lightly. They know something they're not telling us. It could be that patients and their families are demanding the transfers. It could be that the liability insurers at Bellevue threatened to jack up the rates unless they got all other patients out of the unit. It could be many things. But it's something more than preparing for the possibility of more Ebola patients.
Bellevue is also the primary teaching hospital of the New York University School of Medicine and an integral component of the NYU Langone Medical Center Residency Programs. New York University faculty began conducting clinical instruction at Bellevue in 1847. In 1968 NYU School of Medicine assumed complete responsibility for Bellevue's clinical services.
Indeed there is more to the story ...
TY for the ping!
I don't think I am. In an earlier job as a Critical Care Technician I frequently helped transport patients from the ICU to the OR and back. It is complicated with a lot that can go wrong. There are major risks that would not be justified except when necessary for the patient's own benefit. You would never accept the risk to transfer a patient to another hospital unless it was in the patient's best interest. Certainly not for the benefit of a hypothetical patient who may or may not ever come.
The continuity of patient records may or may not be an issue, depending on whether or not the two hospitals share the same medical record system and the same database. I work with a colleague who worked on NYU's electronic medical record system until about 3 years ago. I'll ask him if they share medical records with Bellevue.
My point is that this move, if it's being made, is not simply to make room available for some future patients who may or may not ever materialize. I'm not saying that the powers-that-be know that there are lots of other cases out there. I don't think that's the explanation. But there's something more to the story, and I think one of the other posters had some realistic possibilities. Perhaps it's as simple as the patients (or their families) demanding that they be moved because they don't want them on the same floor as an Ebola patient, or cared for by the same team of doctors and nurses. If that's the case, I would think that Bellevue would want to keep that under wraps and would do something very similar to what they're doing.
And I think that that would be something the government would cooperate in because they don't want--and legitimately so--people getting the idea that they shouldn't go to any hospital where even one Ebola patient is being treated. If such behavior becomes common knowledge then it would become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy--once an Ebola patient arrives at a hospital's door, then they lose all their other patients. I can't think of a faster way to bring down the entire healthcare system than allowing that kind of panic to take hold. And it would only help to accelerate the spread of the disease.
I'm not saying there is evil intent or dishonesty behind the move. I'm only saying we're not being given the whole story.
I concur some with scouter. When I worked in a trauma center, there were times they wouldn’t even risk moving a patient to the OR, performing the procedures in the ICU room. and that center’s ICU rooms were almost always full (8-10 of them for trauma, 8-10 for cardiac).
LOL !
I guess at this time they don’t have any of those exceptional cases that are too risky to move. The fact that special cases occur from time to time is of no relevance.
that isn’t special. people in ICUs are there for a reason. If they didn’t need ICU care, they wouldn’t be in the ICU unit.
Non sequitur.
The population of those patients who are in the ICU but are too risky to move is a subset of overall patients in the ICU, and evidently there are none of the smaller group at this time.
Funny, you don’t know.
True.
... and evidently there are none of the smaller group at this time.
No way for either of us to know that.
In any case, moving ANY patient from the ICU to another hospital is an order of magnitude more complex and risky than moving them from the ICU to the OR. It can only be justified by it being in that specific patient's best interest. Not in the interest of a hypothetical patient who may or may not materialize. There's just got to be more to this story. Not necessarily something evil. Just something more.
I think it’s amazing that you two former technicians feel their insights and judgement are keener than the respective ED Directors and, no doubt, Medical Directors from both hospitals. You are essentially accusing them of professional malpractice.
You are wrong on this one. When my facility opened a new ICU down the hall we had a team of dedicated professionals move each patient. There was a doc assigned just to accompany patients on their trip down the hall. In addition there was nursing staff and respiratory therapy involved in every patient move. It was a very labor intensive and costly move.
Now compound that by moving several blocks away. Each patient would require a critical care ground transport team and likely a doc to ride along. Not an easy or inexpensive task.
Well, it’s being done, I guess. Evidently not impossible or impractical.
Not impossible but very labor intensive and costly. And if something goes wrong, a lot of liability for the hospital who had better have a VERY good reason for the transfer.
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