Hospitals Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

The AARP Bulletin reported on hospital caused illnesses. There are at least 2 million Americans who contract infections while they are in the hospital. Of these, about 90,000 die. Hospital infections are the 6th leading cause of death.

At this point five states require hospitals to publicly disclose their infection statistics. They are Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Unfortunately, we have more effective laws to make sure our cars are recalled when there is even a slight defect versus our being able to know about the number of unnecessary deaths occurring in our hospitals.

Some steps you can take if you are going into the hospital include making sure any staff coming into your hospital room to touch you, wash their hands. While this sounds simple many doctors, nurses and other staff members are not doing it. So…a staff member comes into a room, point them to the wash basin first.

Do You Have To Go To A Hospital? Find Out How Good It Is.

There's now a website you can visit to in order to compare the quality of care for certain medical conditions at over 4,200 hospitals. The review was created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and by organizations representing hospitals, doctors and consumers.

Even if your illness isn't covered, this will give you an indication of the hospital's effectiveness. This means you can now check out all your local hospitals so that if you or your family do need one, you can make the best choice. For the website go to https://www.hhs.gov/answers/health-care/how-can-i-find-out-if-my-hospital-offers-good-care/index.html

I compared a couple of the local hospitals here in Virginia Beach and found that while both were better than the national or state averages, one appears to be better for heart problems and the other for pneumonia care.

New Concept For Humanizing Hospitals

There is a hospital in Norway called Rikshospitalet that has doubled its number of patients, lowered its staff turnover and absentee rates and even reinvigorated its recruitment. How did they do it? It was simple. They built an inviting, soothing hospital with soft lighting, great views, single rooms, relaxing gardens, art on the walls, skylights, large works of art, windows that open. None of it is "rocket science", but much of it has been ignored in hospitals in the US. Just think of how much faster someone will heal being in a lovely environment. Something to think about…

GOING TO THE HOSPITAL? PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!

It's the ratio of nurses to patients! As the ratio of patients-to-nurses rises above 4 to 1, so does the postoperative death rates. For every additional patient above four a nurse is expected to tend, there is a 7% increased risk of death. Patients are more likely to suffer from such complications as urinary tract infections, and pneumonia and more likely to die from such treatable conditions as gastrointestinal bleeding. This was reported in the AARP Newsletter.

There is actually a 126,000 person shortage of nurses. This means when the ratio is higher, you're going to be having nurses who are overextended and tired.

So what can you do? If you are doing elective surgery, check out the nursing staff ratio in advance. Have a family or friend at your side during the hospital stay. Have them act as an advocate for you. Write everything down including questions to ask your doctor and nurses. Double check if there's a change to any of your medications or IV fluids.

Men Having A Heart Attack Are Better Off Being Married

A study looked at how being married affects man’s behavior when he is having a heart attack.
The researchers found that married men having a heart attack arrived at the Emergency Room 30 minutes sooner than single guys. Here’s the interesting part, the wives didn’t even have to be there when the symptoms occurred.
The study’s lead author suggested that “the husbands knew what their wives would say and didn’t want them to be angry if they delayed medical attention.” By the way, married women having a heart attack didn’t arrive at the hospital sooner than a single woman.
Now…for the single guy - to get yourself to the hospital sooner, you can picture what your mother would say. That should do it! 

Going To The Hospital Can Be Dangerous For Dementia Sufferers

A new study found that people with dementia are more likely to be hospitalized than other older adults. While the reason they go into the hospital was not related to their dementia, just going into the hospital increased the likelihood that within the next year they would wind up in a nursing home or they would die.

The study examined the medical records of 771 Alzheimer’s patients who were living at home and fairly high-functioning. About half wound up in the hospital. Normally each year about 4% of the patients who weren’t hospitalized entered a nursing home and 2% died. With the Alzheimer’s patients, 29% wound up going from the hospital to the nursing home and 43% of those with delirium wound up in the nursing home.

Finally, of those who survived the initial hospitalization, 9% died in the next year and 15% of those suffering delirium died.

The researchers are not clear on why this was happening. So…the easy answer is to stay out of the hospital as it can be bad for your health.

(Associated Press, June 20, 2012)

Checking Out Of The Emergency Room Can Be Dangerous To Your Health

When people check out of the emergency room, they are given care   and discharge instructions. According to researchers at Northwestern  University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, 78% of the patients didn’t  fully understand the instructions they were given.

Further, 80% weren’t even aware that they didn’t understand. This means that these patients may have a greater likelihood of complications after leaving the emergency room.

One of the best things you can do to protect yourself is to bring a family member or friend to ask questions and help remember the care instructions. Be sure to ask the doc or nurse to clearly write everything down that you are to do.

(Reported Northwestern Winter 2008)

Technorati Tags: jerry teplitz,emergency room instructions