More on Ottumwa

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette
Federal officials said they plan to revoke Ottumwa Regional Health Center’s Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements next month even though the hospital is appealing a ruling that it mishandled an emergency psychiatric patient.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determined that the hospital improperly discharged an emergency room patient with an [...]

Hospitals Becoming More Hospitable

From the Nashua Telegraph
A Beanie Baby that Michelle Fagan’s daughter received during a visit to the emergency department at St. Joseph Hospital for stitches several years ago led to a new hospital practice: St. Joseph-blue stuffed bears with white T-shirts for every child who is a patient.
“We give out thousands of bears a year,” said [...]

More on the WI Supreme Court Med Mal Ruling

Excerpted from the ABA Journal eReport
MED-MAL RULING HAS DOCTORS REELINGWisconsin Damage Cap Wiped Out in Rational Basis Review
As any constitutional law student knows, rational basis review is the lowest of the low.
But it was high enough for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to wipe out as an equal protection violation a cap on some medical malpractice [...]

Bad News fror Ottumwa Regional

Excerpted from the Ottumwa Courier
Medicare will cut off Ottumwa Regional Health Center on Aug. 11, even if the hospital appeals the decision.
Thomas Lenz, with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Kansas City, said that hospitals have 60 days to indicate they will appeal termination decisions. The appeal does not freeze the clock, though.
“Whenever [...]

Performance Improvement Resources on the Website

We’ve added two new resources to the ACUTE CARE website:
TEN COMMON ERRORS IN EMERGENCY MEDICINE, A RISK MANAGEMENT SUMMARY, adapted from a lecture by Dr. Christine Duranceau, our Medical Director at Platteville, WI
and
Emergency Physician ED Practice Pearls by Dr. Ken Schultheis, our Chief Medical Officer.
Both are accessible from the Iinformation section at the bottom of [...]

More on Ottumwa’s EMTALA Challenge

The following is a press release from Ottumwa Regional Health Center regarding ORHC’s possible removal from the Medicare program. The statement from ORHC read as follows:
For the past two months, Ottumwa Regional Health Center has been the subject of an on-going Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) investigation. EMTALA was enacted to [...]

ResQPump in the Twin Cities

This is a famous case in resuscitation lore. It’s interesting that they’re going to try again. From Yahoo News.
For a clinical trial, paramedics in St. Paul and Minneapolis will be testing experimental suction devices on heart attack patients without their prior consent.
While informed consent is a staple of most medical research, exceptions are allowed [...]

AutoPulse Controversy

I blogged about this aparatus a couple of months back.From the LA Times
Riverside County health officials have suspended use of a federally approved CPR machine after a man who was treated with the device suffered cracked ribs and internal injuries and later died, authorities said.
Paramedics from the Palm Springs Fire Department used the “AutoPulse” cardiac [...]

Getting "Chipped"

From Fox News. Emphasis added.
Getting chipped means having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip implanted in your body. The chip — about the size of a large grain of rice — lies dormant until a special scanner is passed within six inches of the implant. Then it emits a radio signal that beams a 16-digit [...]

EMTALA Problems in Ottumwa, IA

From KOTV
Ottumwans woke to shocking news Wednesday morning, a notice that Medicare coverage could be cut at Ottumwa Regional Health Center.
The notice, in the Ottumwa Courier’s classified section, stated that ORHC is not in “substantial compliance with medicare regulations,” according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The notice went on to say [...]