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Is your hospital the new Google?

A growing number of hospitals are using their patients' health and financial records to help pitch their most lucrative services, such as cancer, heart and orthopedic care. Hospitals say they are promoting needed services, such as cancer screenings and cholesterol tests, but they often use the data to target patients with private health insurance, which typically pay higher rates than government coverage. Most people would be shocked to know how their medical records may be shared with nonmedical firms to help hospitals attract business. The practice is legal.

Emergency Department Discharge Communication

Multiple reports have shown deficient comprehension at discharge, with patients or parents frequently unable to report their diagnosis, management plan, or reasons to return. Interventions to improve discharge communication have been, at best, moderately successful. Patients need structured content, presented verbally, with written and visual cues to enhance recall. Written instructions need to be provided in the patient's language and at an appropriate reading level. Source: Annals of Emergency Medicine

CDC finds C. difficile cases becoming more pervasive

Infection from Clostridium difficile is a patient safety concern in all types of medical facilities, not only hospitals as traditionally thought, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report found that while many healthcare-associated infections, such as bloodstream infections, declined during the past decade, C. difficile infection rates and deaths climbed to historic highs.

C. difficile is linked to about 14,000 U.S. deaths every year, according to the report. Those most at risk are people who take antibiotics and also receive care in any medical setting. Almost half of infections occur in people younger than 65, but more than 90% of deaths occur in people 65 and older.

Lasting symptoms possible after kids' concussions

Some kids may have memory and attention problems up to a year after a concussion. "Our study pretty convincingly shows that the vast majority of kids do very well after a mild traumatic brain injury," or concussion, said Keith O. Yeates of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "The not-so-good news is that there is a small group of kids who have symptoms up to a year after their injury."

Federal Infection Disclosure Mandates Urged

Surgical site infection rates within the nation's hospitals are largely a secret, with public reporting required by only eight states, says a new Johns Hopkins University report, which calls for federal disclosure mandates so problem hospitals are better motivated to reduce preventable harm. "There's a huge transparency problem within the entire industry of modern medicine," says Martin Makary, MD, a gastroenterology surgeon at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the paper's lead author. "Patients by and large are still left with no useful information to make healthcare choices about which hospital to go to, and because of that fact, they don't have access to metrics that are being collected and they're forced to walk in blind."

The eight states that require public reporting are South Carolina, Missouri, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Vermont and Oregon.

Sitting can kill you

New research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows that people who spend a lot of time sitting may be up to 40% more likely to die from any cause, compared to people who don't sit as long. Compared to people who spent less than four hours per day sitting, the odds of dying were:

  • 15% higher for people who sat for at least eight hours
  • 40% higher for people who sat for 11 or more hours a day

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