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Nationally, 724 hospitals have had their Medicare funding reduced after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that each had high rates of potentially avoidable “hospital-acquired conditions,” including falls, bed sores, and certain infections, including ventilator acquired pneumonia and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. CMS scored hospitals on the prevalence of three risk factors to their Medicare population patients: central line bloodstream infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and serious complications, a catch-all group made up of eight types of injuries, including blood clots, falls, and bed sores. Funding can be reinstated for hospitals whose scores improve in the targeted areas.

Ms. Smith’s tragic demise was more dramatic than many cases of hospital-acquired infection (HAI). Necrotizing fasciitis is a frightening, but rare, complication. Still, about 8,000 Canadians a year die from bugs they contract in facilities meant to make them better, while many more see their hospital stay prolonged by such illness. Yet after years of well-intentioned work and millions of dollars spent on combatting the scourge, the details and extent of the problem remain murky. No national statistics, for instance, document the number of surgical-wound infections like Ms. Smith’s, one of the most common types of hospital-acquired pathogens. A federal...

The Obama administration announced new rules under Obamacare on Monday that target nonprofit hospitals’ efforts to get paid by their patients.Nonprofit hospitals, which serve a charitable purpose and are often religiously affiliated, will now be subject to strict rules on when and how they can collect payments from customers, thanks to regulations included in the health-care law. As a condition of their tax-exempt status, these hospitals must “take an active role in improving the health of the communities they serve,” Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for tax policy Emily McMahon wrote in a blog post Monday. Under the new IRS...

As my dear friends’ fifty something daughter faces up to five hours of surgery this week to remove leaking silicone breast implants, I just wanted to use up a few lines of type to express my shock and awe at what has become the PRACTICE of Medicine in this country. And indeed, PRACTICE, becomes an apt word as I meditate on what is happening to my friends and relatives at this time of the year. When she was twenty, my new friend was implanted with silicone because her breasts were “little.” She wanted to be appealing to men, I guess....

Health officials have designated 35 hospitals across the country as Ebola treatment centers. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the list of hospitals on Tuesday. Most are clustered in metropolitan areas like New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Washington D.C.

" '... for nearly 100 days, we have protested to demand an indictment', I guess that's how they think the justice system works, it has nothing to do with evidence ..."

The 10 hospitals designated by New York state to serve Ebola patients continue to rack up preparation or treatment costs. Bellevue Hospital Center, where Dr. Craig Spencer, New York City's only Ebola patient, is being treated, produces several 55-gallon drums of Ebola-related medical waste per day, said Reuvan Pasternak, chief executive of Stony Brook University Hospital, citing a conference call among hospital officials when the procedure was discussed. Other sources were briefed that Bellevue is spending $100,000 daily on waste treatment. "It's a huge cost," Dr. Pasternak said of waste disposal. "It's much more substantial than one would think." A...

Tail-wagging love really does conquer all: James Wathen, a terminally-ill patient at Baptist Health Corbin in Corbin, Kentucky, had stopped eating and had become weak and frail. His condition kept deteriorating, and he was barely able to talk. Wathen managed to whisper to a nurse his wish to see his dog, Bubba, just one more time. The 73-year-old hadn’t seen his one-eyed Chihuahua with no bottom teeth since he arrived by ambulance at the Whitley County hospital six weeks earlier. “One of our social workers realized it was mourning the loss of the dog that was making our patient even...

This Ebola outbreak is being called the “most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times“, and the U.S. health care system is completely and totally unprepared for it. The truth is that most U.S. hospitals are simply not equipped to safely handle Ebola patients, and most hospital staff members have received little or no training on Ebola. And the fact that Barack Obama and our top public health officials are running around proclaiming that Ebola is “difficult to catch” is giving doctors and nurses a false sense of security. There is a reason why Ebola has been classified as...

Have you heard about the insurance company that provides free health coverage for the poor? Me neither. What about the hospital that provides free health care services to the poor? Of course, you say. Many of them do! Indeed, some of these hospitals even go bankrupt in the process. It is beyond the scope of this article to discern how economic values are set in a society, but rest assured that supply and demand are but one factor—especially in health care. Notably, health care is the most regulated industry in the country. With compliance comes massive additional costs, not to...

A CDC official said the agency realized that many hospitals remain confused and unsure about how they are supposed to react when a suspected patient shows up. The agency sent additional guidance to health-care facilities around the country this week, just as it has numerous times in recent months, on everything from training personnel to spot the symptoms of Ebola to using protective gear. Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which has treated several Ebola patients who were flown from West Africa, also has provided information and advice to dozens of hospitals, many of which are struggling with a lack of...

An Australian hospital apologized on Thursday after mistakenly sending out death notices for 200 of its - very much alive - patients. Austin Hospital, in Australia's second most populous city of Melbourne, erroneously killed off the patients when it faxed death notices to their family doctors.

Nine out of ten hospital wards may be at risk of overheating, increasing the dangers for vulnerable patients who are left sweltering in temperatures of more than 26C (78.8F), government advisers have warned. Poor ventilation, thin walls, low ceilings and big windows that can barely be opened are contributing to temperatures far exceeding acceptable levels during hot weather, according to the Committee on Climate Change. One fifth of domestic properties could also already be overheating, with flats especially vulnerable, it finds. The number of people dying prematurely from overheating could triple to 7,000 per year by the 2050s as global...

Lack of timely treatment could have killed the baby, who is now healthyA series of blood transfusions for a baby while still in the mother’s womb has resulted in a successful delivery in the capital’s well-known maternity facility, the Corniche Hospital. The hospital announced on Monday that the in-utero transfusions were required to ensure the baby boy’s health. He was born to Marwa Badee, an Egyptian resident, who has two other children. Speaking about the case to Gulf News, Dr Leanne Brickers, chair of foetal medicine at the public hospital managed by the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha), said...

About two years ago, Brian Turner took a job as a scheduling clerk at a Veterans Affairs health clinic in Austin. A few weeks later, he said, a supervisor came by to instruct him how to cook the books. “The first time I heard it was actually at my desk. They said, ‘You gotta zero out the date. The wait time has to be zeroed out,’ ” Turner recalled in a phone interview. He said “zeroing out” was a trick to fool the VA’s own accountability system, which the bosses up in Washington used to monitor how long patients waited to...

FOXBusiness.com reporter Kate Rogers and CentraState Healthcare System Hospital CEO John Gribbin on efforts to reduce health-care costs Video Link

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) blocked the release of the names of hospitals where 19 veterans died because of delays in medical screenings, leading to calls for transparency from news outlets and a bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers. Earlier this month, the VA denied a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Tampa Tribune reporter Howard Altman, who had been investigating the deaths. CNN reported in January that 19 veterans died as a result of delayed gastrointestinal cancer screenings, while another 63 were seriously injured. CNN obtained internal documents from the VA listing the number of “institutional disclosures...

The problems with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act may be masking another major change in the way health care is delivered to U.S. consumers, experts believe. At a conference in Washington on Thursday, health care and business professionals said that there’s an increasing trend in the industry toward cutting insurance companies out of the process entirely, as large, regional hospital systems move into the insurance business. Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, CEO and president of Mount Sinai Health System, the largest health care provider in the state of New York, said that starting next year, Mt. Sinai will begin...

The regulations would require hospitals, nursing facilities and group homes to have plans to maintain emergency lighting, fire safety systems, and sewage and waste disposal during power losses, and to keep temperatures at a safe level for patients. Those inpatient facilities would also be expected to track displaced patients, provide care at alternate sites and handle volunteers. Transplant centers would need to identify alternate hospitals for patients awaiting organs — a challenge because centers maintain different transplant criteria. Home health care agencies would be required to help patients create personalized disaster plans. Hospices and others caring for frail, homebound patients...

Doctors are leaving private practice to become employees of hospitals, according to this story in the New York Times. The decline in private practice physicians actually began a few years ago when changes to Medicare forced many physicians who practiced individually or in small group offices to make the move to a salaried position in a hospital.But there is no doubt that Obamacare has exacerbated the problem. The onerous recordkeeping is one big reason why private practice physicians are becoming extinct. Private physicians can’t afford the extra employees to meet the demands of Obamacare paperwork.Dr, Paul Hsieh explained in a...