Events Calendar
In This Section
Most Read Stories
Man robbed at Tallmadge Avenue eatery
Four teens restrain man, take items from his Akron home
Another winter punch heading toward Ohio
Police: Ohio girl dies after fall into snow bank
Complaints against officer keep coming
Cuyahoga Falls residents come home to find burning couch on balcony
Cleveland named worst U.S. city for winter weather; Columbus is No. 8
Blogs:
First Bell - On Education:
No City of Akron basketball tonight
Pets:
Pet telethon re-airs
The Heldenfiles:
Chipmunks "Squeakquel" on DVD/BD March 30
Akron Zips:
Late surge gives Zips ugly road win
Tribe Matters:
Blogmail response on Hafner
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth's contract terminated
Balanced Ledger:
QB in Browns future: another mock draft
Kent State Sports:
KSU Notes – February 9
Cleveland Cavaliers:
NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
Varsity Letters:
Garfield at Buchtel basketball
All Da King's Men:
Palin At The Tea Party Convention
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Republican Pre-Conditions
Akron Law Café:
Citizens United v. F.E.C. (Part 4): Kennedy's and O'Connor's Basic Approaches to Constitutional Decisionmaking – Top Down and Bottom Up
Car Chase:
Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
Sound Check:
Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
Track HR Research
Akron Gamer:
'Tecmo Bowl' recreation of Super Bowl XLIV
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
The Feds have upped the ante on patient care. For hospitals, Medicare policy is added incentive to reduce medical errors
Published on Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007
It's about time taxpayers stopped footing the extra bills for errors that are preventable with reasonable precautions and modifications in care practices.
The issue of patient safety and the prevalence of medical errors has gained wide public attention in the past decade. In 1999, an Institute of Medicine report estimated that a shocking 44,000 to 98,000 patients a year die as a result of mistakes made in hospitals. More recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated about 1.7 million infections occur in hospitals every year, leading directly or indirectly to some 99,000 deaths. The rising rate of infections such as Clostridium difficile (c. diff) in hospitals and nursing homes is much discussed.
Besides lost lives and lost productivity, treating the complications that result from errors is a huge extra expense. The parties that foot the bills families, the government, insurance companies and employers pay for the initial illness and the mistakes.
The concern to reduce hospital risks and improve the quality of care is driving the effort for greater transparency in reporting medical mistakes. Crucial, too, is the increasing collaboration among hospital administrators, business and insurance groups and and government officials to identify best practices in health care delivery. These range from practices as simple (and cheap) as frequent handwashing by medical staff and better handwriting to the use of state-of-the-art technologies, including electronic medical records, that reduce the potential for errors.
Under the new policy, Medicare will refuse payments for illnesses or conditions that could have been prevented. For example, the government will not pay for a procedure to retrieve a surgical instrument left inside a patient or for a blood transfusion to correct a previous, botched transfusion. Treatments for bed sores, medication errors, falls and hospital-acquired complications such as infections of surgical wounds and catheter sites will not be reimbursed.
Not only will Medicare not pay for a hospital's mistakes, but the providers are barred from passing on the cost to patients. Estimates are the new policy will save Medicare at least $20 million a year. Critics note the policy could raise other costs, for instance, encouraging providers to order more laboratory tests in an effort to identify conditions prior to admission.
Still, the tougher federal stance should serve as a powerful financial incentive for hospitals to pick up the pace, reducing their error rates for greater patient safety.
Get the full article here.
