The Drawn-Out Indignities of The American Way of Death

From the Washington Post:
I’m a physician in a large hospital in Minneapolis, where I help care for patients struggling through the winter of their lives. We’ve got a lively spring unit, an obstetrical ward where fresh-faced tulips are popping up at all hours, but that’s not my specialty. As a hospitalist, I see adult patients [...]

Reports mention absence of terrain warning systems on crashed choppers

From Modern Healthcare:
Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that helicopters in two of last year’s fatal air ambulance crashes were not equipped with a terrain-awareness warning system, or TAWS, a recommendation the NTSB made to the Federal Aviation Administration in 2006.
On Oct. 15, an Air Angels helicopter struck a radio station tower about [...]

CMS outlines ways of reforming fee-for-service Medicare

From Modern Healthcare:
The CMS has issued several documents to help transition the Medicare fee-for-service program to a system that pays providers on the basis of quality and value, rather than on volume of services.
One of the papers released by the agency offers steps to implement quality and resource-use measurement to improve the delivery of care. [...]

Why Not Run Hospitals Like Firehouses?

From Musings of a Dinosaur:
Have you noticed that everyone always says the same thing whenever there’s a true medical emergency: “Go to the nearest hospital.”
This implies that a hospital — any hospital — is qualified to provide some basic level of medical care. In fact, with all the assorted evidence-driven protocols out there these days, [...]

Is there a doctor in the house?

From the Star Tribune:
A chronic shortage of physicians has led some hospitals to staff their ERs with other medical professionals.
WASECA — It’s easy to mistake Rhonda Wallace, in her white coat and stethoscope, for a doctor.
Many patients do, the first time they see her in the emergency room at Waseca Medical Center.
She’s the one who [...]