Category Archives: - Hospital Administration

Hospitals everywhere are feeling the squeeze of the down economy and reimbursement cuts. There have been job layoffs, closed facilities, so that’s why some people are questioning why hospitals are spending so much money on marketing and advertising. “NY healthcare institutions spent $80 million in advertising this year, up from $69.3 million last year, according [...]

E.R. and psychiatric wards of hospitals are usually a place where hospital employees need to be vigilant and brace for some dangerous situations. However, according to news reports, a disturbing trend of violence in hospitals is on the rise. “Nearly 40 % of emergency room employees in California have been physically assaulted on the job, [...]

It’s no secret that there is a national shortage of physicians and with newly insured patients getting access to medical care, how do healthcare executives at hospitals and other medical facilities make ends meet? How do they find ways to keep the physicians that they already have on staff? For more information on this topic [...]

West Penn Allegheny Health System, based in Pittsburgh, has reported a loss of $26.8 million (halfway in the fiscal year). $12 million contributed to the operating loss due to the system’s major restructuring project. The loss was in part due to severance packages, as well as fees for consultants and “physician integration costs.”

The Leapfrog Group has named the top hospitals for this decade. Do you know if your hospital is on this list? This survey began back in 2001. It rates hospital performance in the following areas: high-risk procedures and mortality rates; what resources are utilized for patient care, compared to the duration of patients’ stay and what the readmission rates are; how is the staffing and is it sufficient in the ICU and the use of “computerized physician order entry systems.”

The New England Journal of Medicine has published a commentary calling for policies to require informed consent from patients. This informed consent would need to be received before a healthcare professional (who is working under sleep deprivation) provides medical care or performs surgery.

In Addison, Texas, a physician-owned hospital was built and completed and received their Medicare provider number with only three days to spare before the ban on any new physician-owned hospitals took effect. This is a new Methodist Hospital for Surgery.

Do you know the best places to practice medicine? Check out this report from Physicians Practice

There is a petition before OSHA that is asking for Residents hours to be shortened. Certain advocacy groups are arguing that Residents are working too long hours. So, should there be tighter regulations on the work hours for Residents?

In this current economic environment, will public hospitals survive? With this current economy and the advent of the new health care reform law, will these solo public hospitals be able to survive or will they slowly become extinct and overshadowed by the bigger health systems and possibly even by new government run hospitals?

Despite the recent drop in patient admissions to US hospitals, several facilities seem to be raking in a profit. One of the most profitable hospitals currently in the US is Flowers Medical Center in Dothan, Ala.

The HHS has just announced that $32 million in assistance will be doled out to those rural healthcare systems to assist in their medical care of patients in those localities. It’s great that the Federal Government is dishing out money to these rural healthcare facilities; however, this is all being done on the taxpayers’ dime.

For those who have been advocating for stronger patient privacy rules, the wait is over. The HHS will now have to make stronger standards and rewrite those privacy rules. Temporary rules were issued in August; however, the HHS will issue its final regulations sometime in the fall of this year. Both sides of this issue have valid points, but we’ll have to wait until the fall to see the final regulations laid out.

More and more people are opting to put off elective, non-critical medical procedures as they are deciding to live with those non-critical health issues rather than being patients in the hospital. There is a correlation here between this growing trend and hospital stocks going on the decline.

Hospitals are now utilizing technology to keep patients informed of wait times in the ER. MetroWest Medical Center in Boston is now one of the hospitals added to the list of those utilizing text messages to keep patients informed of long wait times in the ER. Obviously, this service is designed to be utilized by patients with urgent complaints, like abdominal pain, serious headaches, broken bones, but not by patients with serious and life threatening injuries.

At Helen Ellis Hospital in Tarpon Springs, Fla, the city commissioners’ vote is allowing hiring to be based upon religion. As this clause barring religious discrimination is removed, other Seventh-day Adventist policies will be implemented into the new policies. State and federal law already protects employees against discrimination of any kind, regardless of this clause, but this matter still did come before the city commissioners for a vote.

Patients who live in rural areas in the United States are less likely to receive adequate trauma care than those who are living in more urban and suburban areas. Facilities in the rural areas are not as adequate and there is a shortage of surgeons in these rural facilities.

The GOP supported a healthcare amendment for the November ballot and this amendment has been shut down by a Florida judge; he claimed that the wording was misleading to the voters. The GOP amendment set out to ban the state so that it could not take part in the aspect of the healthcare law which would call for citizens to purchase insurance or get a penalty if they decide not to carry a health insurance policy.

As a patient, how would you like your experience at a hospital to become more like your experience as a customer on amazon.com? Hospitals are trying a new approach to “patient-specific marketing.” Is this a good thing or not?

Across the US, patients are waiting in Emergency rooms longer than ever before. “From arrival until discharge, patients spend an average of 4 hours, 7 minutes in emergency departments—a four-minute increase from 2008.” In Utah, the average wait is 8 ½ hours. However, 17 states were able to significantly reduce ER wait times, by more than 1 hour from the total time in 2008.