RedScrubs
The Resource for Medical Professionals

Bribing healthcare organizations to screen patients presenting to an emergency department is not the way to control healthcare costs. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is doing just that though. As part of a multi-million dollar incentive to the states it wants to divert patients with “non-emergency” medical problems away from local emergency departments and point them to other resources within the community. The goal is to decrease the cost associated with seeking care in that emergency department. This care is typically more expensive than care provided by clinics or a primary care provider.

I have raised the question on my own blog site Healthcare Today whether healthcare itself is a privilege or a right; citizenship and immigration issues aside. After reviewing the bill of rights I was unable to determine if there was any clear mention of such related topics and I wasn’t able to find any reference. Clearly the founders had many other issues of more importance on their plates at the time. The only small mention that perhaps one could tie into healthcare was from the Declaration of Independence …that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…;hardly a strong case for the right of healthcare for all.

How do we as a country solve the problem of escalating costs associated with healthcare? I have written several pieces regarding the business aspects of healthcare and how in some cases the business portion of providing care is killing us. Reports have been in the news of late listing the death rates per state of people that die prematurely because they don’t have adequate health insurance. We have all read ad nauseam article after article about the reimbursement problems providers and hospitals are having, the mounting bad debt that healthcare organizations are carrying, and many such stories. At this point even for a healthcare provider the news makes me weary, and to read yet another story or blog entry is becoming difficult. Many times I just want to ignore it all and go and put on Sponge Bob on Nickelodeon.

Will healthcare organizations raise the bar on transparency and start reporting adverse events in a public forum as they do costs, and other quality of care indicators?

Transparency, a word with several connotations: free from pretense or deceit, readily understood, characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices. When healthcare organizations discuss the notion of transparency the later two descriptions exemplify the concept. Organizational transparency in healthcare has typically taken the form of selected quality of care indicators.

I feel somewhat compelled to pen a verse or two regarding the linked article in the New York Times today regarding the continued pandemic this country has with obesity. Most of what we see in the media these days regarding obesity are warnings about the hazards of over indulgence. Heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, loads of orthopedic problems color the pages of several health sections of any local paper.

Scott MacStravic over at World Healthcare Blog authored a great piece the other day regarding the physician shortage and the use of mid-level providers as a means of improving access to care. I wanted to take an opportunity to echo Scott’s comments with this subject.

Nursing: the recession-proof job market lies across an article from CNNMoney.com. A brief bit about the opportunities in nursing and how other career professionals that are experiencing layoffs and troubled times in their present career field are now jumping ship and entering nursing.

Perusing the abyssal of medial bogs this morning I came across yet another winning accolade for healthcare that involves a young man [17 year old Nick Colombo] who lives in the Los Angeles area that is fighting a battle with metastatic cancer. His insurance provider Pacific Care had initially denied his claim for advanced radiation treatment it appears due to the cost of the therapy – some $100,000.00. Family and friends were predictably outraged and disappointed.

Headlines in the Sacramento Business Journal state “Study: Nurse staffing ratio hasn’t improved patient care”. The California Nursing Outcomes Coalition conducted the study to evaluate the quality of nursing since the advent of nurse patient ratio laws in California.

“The first study of the effect of nurse-to-patient ratios on care in California hospitals concludes hospitals have hired more registered nurses, but they’ve had little effect on two areas of care — patient falls and bed sores.”