hospitals

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More Hospitals Refuse to Hire Smokers

Puffing on a cigarette can be grounds for dismissal

(Newser) - A new trend in hospital jobs: Smokers need not apply. In what some call “tobacco-free hiring,” medical businesses are refusing employment to smokers, insisting on blood tests for nicotine along with applications, the New York Times reports. The policy—which, the Times notes, treats a legal habit like...

More Hospitals Banning Videos in Delivery Room

Those sentimental images can become court evidence

(Newser) - Hospital managers across the country are confronting a tough decision, reports the New York Times : whether to allow families to videotape births. For one thing, those ever-more powerful cameras can deliver strikingly detailed pieces of evidence should things go wrong. In a 2007 case, for example, the University of Illinois...

New Dad Celebrates—By Smoking Pot in the Hospital

Police are summoned, he 'fesses up

(Newser) - Forget cigars. One Pennsylvania dad decided he’d celebrate the impending birth of his kid by lighting up a joint with a buddy—right in the hospital, the Pittsburgh Tribune reports. He was considerate enough to use the designated smoking area, but a nurse, catching a whiff of the distinctive...

Booze Is on the Menu at Some Hospitals

Sure, the food is gross, but the wine might make up for it

(Newser) - At some hospitals, you just might be able to enjoy a glass of wine alongside your Jell-O and boiled carrots. Indiana’s Parkview Ortho Hospital is the latest to allow patients or family members to bring alcohol in—with doctor’s approval, of course—and it’s not the only...

Doctors Need to Work Weekends


 Doctors Need to 
 Work Weekends 
Peter Orszag
Oct 4, 2010 11:21 AM CDT

Doctors Need to Work Weekends

Peter Orszag: No one wants to work Saturdays, but we need them to

(Newser) - If we're serious about raising the quality of health care while lowering its cost, doctors need to do two things: The first is suck it up and work weekends, writes Peter Orszag. There are plenty of compelling reasons: People who are hospitalized on Saturdays and Sundays don't fare so well,...

Hospital Patients Dying From Preventable Infections

Simple procedures can reduce deaths, says CDC

(Newser) - Wash your hands, doc! The CDC estimates that 80,000 people annually develop bloodstream infections from improper procedure while inserting catheters and IVs, with 30,000 of those patients dying. According to a survey of medical professionals, these deaths occur because hospital administrators fail to pay attention to these easily...

Hospital Rights for Gays a Good 'Small Step'
 Hospital Rights for Gays 
 a Good 'Small Step' 
opinion roundup
Apr 16, 2010 11:53 AM CDT

Hospital Rights for Gays a Good 'Small Step'

That it's a big deal shows how much must be done

(Newser) - President Obama's decision to give gay partners visitation rights in hospitals and medical power of attorney is generally being hailed in a let's-not-get-carried-away way:
  • David Dayen, Firedog Lake : "Hospital visitation is important, and this is a compassionate order. But it’s a small step in the grand scheme of
...

Obama Gives Gays Hospital Rights
Obama Gives Gays Hospital Rights
Apr 15, 2010 7:16 PM CDT

Obama Gives Gays Hospital Rights

Partners can visit, have medical power of attorney

(Newser) - Gays have won a long-sought victory: President Obama has ordered hospitals to allow same-sex partners to visit and have medical power of attorney, the Washington Post reports. He signed the order tonight and it will be made public tomorrow. Hospitals would jeopardize their Medicare and Medicaid funding if they refuse...

US Resumes Haiti Medical Airlifts

Some patients will go to other states, Caribbean countries

(Newser) - Military airlifts of injured Haitians to US hospitals are set to resume today after a five-day suspension in the wake of complaints that Florida hospitals were overwhelmed and needed help footing the bill. In the struggle to aid the estimated 200,000 people injured in the earthquake, the flight suspension...

US Doesn't Need More Doctors
 US Doesn't 
 Need More 
 Doctors 
opinion
Dec 23, 2009 12:37 PM CST

US Doesn't Need More Doctors

That makes the problem worse; we need better primary care

(Newser) - Teaching hospitals want to increase the number of medical residencies financed by the federal government by 15,000 from the current 100,000. Seems to makes sense: More doctors makes for a healthier nation, right? Wrong, write Shannon Brownlee and David Goodman. In fact, it would only make the nation's...

Temp Firms Keep Hiring Lousy Nurses
Temp Firms
Keep Hiring
Lousy Nurses
investigation
Dec 5, 2009 3:07 PM CST

Temp Firms Keep Hiring Lousy Nurses

They skimp on background checks in lucrative industry

(Newser) - Agencies that supply hospitals with temporary nurses skimp on background checks and allow incompetent workers to move from one facility to the next, reports ProPublica. The reason? The nation's chronic shortage of nurses has created a lucrative $4 billion industry with little oversight. The investigation documents cases of nurses with...

Lobbyists Deal Death Blows to Health Care Cost Cuts

Having KO'd most cuts, they're aiming at Cadillac tax and Medicare commission

(Newser) - Who's winning the health care battle? Lobbyists, says the New York Times, who've succeeded in blocking virtually every avenue for cutting health care costs that has been put on the table. They've killed proposals that would pinch doctors, hospitals, insurers and employees who are the beneficiaries of so-called Cadillac health...

Swine Flu Victims Could Swamp Hospitals
 Swine Flu Victims 
 Could Swamp Hospitals 
h1n1 outbreak
Oct 1, 2009 2:10 PM CDT

Swine Flu Victims Could Swamp Hospitals

CDC estimates are more than US can handle

(Newser) - Hospitals will be in big trouble if the swine flu outbreak matches the flu pandemic of 1968. In that mild pandemic, 35% of Americans got sick. If that happened today, 15 states would run out of hospital beds, and another dozen would have to fill 75% of their beds with...

Hospital Staff Suspended Over 'Lying Down Game'

Administrators not amused by Facebook-inspired antics

(Newser) - The “lying down game,” an online pastime fueled by Facebook, has gotten seven British doctors and nurses suspended for uploading photos of themselves horizontal the job, Sky News reports. Hospital administrators say staff could get fired for breaking infection control regulations. The Facebook group that proposed the game...

To Fix Health Care, End Health Insurance

(Newser) - Everybody's thinking small on health care reform, writes David Goldhill in the Atlantic. Our system is so abysmal—the headline on his lengthy piece is "How American Health Care Killed My Father"—that it needs a radical restructuring, and that should start with insurance. Let's just stop buying...

Hospitals Agree to $155B in Future Savings

Will accept lower payments for Medicaid, Medicare

(Newser) - The nation’s hospitals have struck a deal with White House and Senate negotiators that will save the government $155 billion over 10 years, the Washington Post reports. The hospitals will accept lower-than-expected Medicare and Medicaid payments, and a gradual reduction in the amount paid to help care for the...

Obama Seeks Another $313B in Health Cuts

He wants to reduce Medicare payments to hospitals

(Newser) - In an effort to pay for his ambitious health care plans, Barack Obama today proposed another $313 billion in cuts to government health care spending over the next decade, the Wall Street Journal reports. That brings the total cuts proposed to nearly $950 billion, just shy of the $1 trillion...

Iraqi Hospitals Crumble as Drugs Vanish

(Newser) - Filthy, bug-infested Iraqi hospitals still lack basic equipment and supplies that could save thousands of lives, McClatchy reports. With sectarian violence down, doctors and aid groups are blaming government corruption for the nation's health woes. "The government has money," said a fourth-year resident at a Baghdad hospital....

Octuplet Hospital Fined in Privacy Breach

(Newser) - The California hospital where Nadya Suleman's octuplets were born has been fined $250,000 for failing to stop employees from snooping into medical files on the famous case. "It's the hospital's job to prevent these breaches from occurring," said a state official shortly after imposing the fine against...

Docs Foresee Trouble With Digitizing Records

For electronic records, money is there but technology isn't

(Newser) - The administration's push to digitize health records is raising red flags with an important constituency: doctors. "We have a long way to go," said the lead author of a report out today that shows only 9% of hospitals have computerized records. His article is part of a...

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