July 6th, 2011 by admin in Health Policy, Opinion
No Comments »
America’s ICUs are in crisis. Consider these staggering statistics: Today’s ICUs Serve 4 million patients annually, with roughly 20 percent mortality rates among those treated. On average, every patient admitted to the ICU suffers 1.7 potentially life threatening errors every day and estimates show that patients only receive half of the therapies that they should. And 50,000 patients annually die in the ICU from preventable deaths.
But research indicates that ICU patients have lower risks of death and shorter ICU and hospital stays when an intensivist is on duty in the ICU and oversees patient care. The mortality reduction has ranged from 15 to 60 percent lower than in ICUs where there are no intensivists. However, the Committee for Manpower for Pulmonary and Critical Care Services predicts a shortage of 10,000 ICU physicians, called intensivists, who have extra training to specialize in the care of the ICU patient. This national shortage of intensivists makes it extremely difficult to find intensivists that can provide 24/7 care for today’s ICU patients.
The answer to solving this crisis has emerged from the world of telemedicine. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
November 2nd, 2010 by admin in Health Policy, Humor, Opinion, True Stories
No Comments »
This is a guest post from Carolyn Thomas:
An Open Letter To All Hospital Staff
Dear hospital employees,
After a particularly bizarre experience undergoing a treadmill stress echocardiogram at your hospital recently, I decided to do something that I have never done before: I called the manager of the cardiology department to complain about her staff. (Incidentally, a recent opinion survey of international tourists found that Canadians were #1 in only one category: “Least likely to complain when things go wrong” — so you can appreciate that lodging an official complaint is a fairly big deal here!)
In my best PR fashion, I told the manager how distressing the appointment had been because of the behaviour of the two cardiac technicians in the room. It’s not so much that they were openly rude, but it was their insufferable lack of people skills that had pushed me over the edge. No introductions, no eye contact, no consideration of how awkward this test can be, no explanation of the test procedures or even the flimsiest effort at polite conversation. To them, I was merely the 1:00 o’clock appointment, the obstacle between them and their next coffee break, just a piece of meat on a slab — but worse, an invisible piece of meat. Read more »
