Around the Nation Archive

A new chapter in the continuing story of antibiotic resistance is being written in doctors' offices across the country, as a group of common bacteria rapidly becomes resistant to the antibiotics that have been used to treat them for decades. The bacteria are called Staphylococcus aureus, or staph for short. Staph are the most common cause of skin infections like boils and can also cause lung infections, bloodstream infections and abscesses in the body's internal organs. In hospitalized patients, infections caused by antibiotic-resistant staph have been common for years. Among healthy people, though, antibiotic resistance in staph has not been a big problem. Since the 1970's, doctors have routinely, and successfully, treated staph infections in healthy patients with penicillin-like drugs. Not anymore. Office doctors who follow this practice now may find their patients getting sicker instead of better.

Through Gaps in System, Nurse Left Trail of Grief
The New York Times, 2/29/2004

He tried suicide at least three times, did four stints at mental hospitals, broke into a colleague's house and wanted a doctor prosecuted just for drawing his blood. He was once found wearing surgical scrubs at the missile controls of a nuclear submarine, and he was known in his neighborhood for his nighttime chasing of cats. And even before the deaths that led to his arrest in December, at least four times in his career as a nurse, people claimed Charles Cullen might have killed patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The chore busters: New concierge service keeps
University Hospital staff sane
Cincinnati Business Courier, 2/27/2004

Kathy Moller works longer hours as a registered nurse at University Hospital now that concierges Melissa Gunning and Tina Napier run her errands. That's exactly what Karen Bankston, vice president for external relations at the Health Alliance (University Hospital's parent agency) hoped for when she decided to try out the services provided by Best Upon Request.

Ailing hospitals losing revenue to suburban medical offices
Business First of Buffalo (NY), 2/27.2004

Colonoscopies are the newest among diagnostic tests and surgical procedures that are leaving Western New York hospitals and finding homes in medical centers that are right in patients' neighborhoods in many cases. Colonoscopies join MRI scans, cataract surgery and other tests and procedures that are able to be performed in community-based medical offices, usually in populous suburbs, where it is more convenient for doctors and patients. It also less expensive – estimated to be about $300 less per colonoscopy – because there are fewer fixed costs in a small office than a big hospital.

Hospitals see growth in outpatient services
Dallas Business Journal, 2/27/2004

Under pressure to create revenue to offset slim margins from inpatient care, hospitals nationwide are focusing on ambulatory care service lines. And, according to new research, those with clearly defined organizational goals and substantial research of their markets are most successful. Ambulatory care, defined as medical care delivered on an outpatient basis, plays a significant role in the United States, accounting for 4.4 billion visits in 2002 alone.

Patients' Rx: fast food?
Dallas Business Journal, 2/27/2004

Craving a juicy hamburger? Can't live another second without a cup of gourmet coffee? Don't let a minor inconvenience like being in the hospital get in your way. More and more Dallas-Fort Worth hospitals are resembling shopping-mall food courts, with retail kiosks and counters offering everything from Subway sandwiches and McDonald's fries to Starbucks coffee.

Physician-investors may learn hospital
privileges have a price
The Business Journal of Kansas City, 2/27/2004

Throughout the country, community hospitals have started kicking entrepreneurial doctors out, revoking admitting privileges if a physician invests in a competing hospital or outpatient facility.

Robots Assist Heart Surgeons
The Wall Street Journal, 2/26/2004

A four-armed surgical robot costing $1.2 million is becoming a fixture in a growing number of hospital operating rooms. But is it the next wave in minimally invasive surgery, or technological overkill at an exorbitant price?

Specialty hospitals growing fast
The Dallas Morning News, 2/26/2004

For much of last year, executives at Texas Health Resources brainstormed with architects and lawyers to build a project that would ward off a looming competitive threat. But in December, President Bush helped dash the company's plans for a specialty hospital in Garland that would perform mostly lucrative surgical procedures. Buried in the new Medicare legislation he signed was a little-noticed moratorium halting construction of such hospitals for 18 months. THR's scramble highlights the pressures large hospitals face from a new brand of rivals – small hospitals, often with 20 or fewer beds, which specialize only in a few profitable kinds of operations. Rather than see these facilities steal away their revenue, some companies such as THR are getting into the business themselves.

Bar Codes Favored to Cut Hospitals' Drug Errors
Washington Post, 2/26/2004

Many of the plastic identity bracelets that hospital patients wear will soon have an added bit of information embossed on them -- a bar code containing information designed to make sure patients do not get the wrong drug or dosage by mistake.

FDA Will Require Bar Codes On Hospital-Dispensed Drugs
The Wall Street Journal, 2/26/2004

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs given to patients in hospitals will require bar codes as a safeguard against medical errors, the U.S. government announced. Bar codes also will be required for vaccines, as well as machine-readable information on blood and blood products.

J&J and Guidant Form Alliance
Before Launch of a Rival's Stent
The Wall Street Journal, 2/25/2004

Johnson & Johnson and Guidant Corp. roiled the $4 billion market for coronary stents by announcing they are joining forces to market J&J's drug-coated device in advance of the expected launch of a competitor.

PREVENTING MEDICAL ERRORS: U-M hospital's goal:
Safest in the nation
Detroit Free Press, 2/24/2004

Kati Bauer was concerned. The incision on her husband's neck "looked yucky." But when she told several young physicians caring for him in June 2002 at the University of Michigan Medical Center, they dismissed her concerns, she says. The medicine they had prescribed would protect him, she says they told her. Jim Bauer, a builder hospitalized with serious injuries from a fall at work, then developed an infection that added weeks to his hospital stay and threatened his life.

Hospitals embracing information technology
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/22/2004

It's not like hospitals are strangers to high technology. They are crammed with information-age machines capable of amazing tasks. Some peer into a patient's insides and capture video of beating hearts. Others zap tumors with precise bolts of radiation. Yet, when it comes to how a doctor informs colleagues of a patient's diagnosis or a nurse about a care plan, the technology often is little more advanced than hand-scrawled notes or mumbled dictation into a tape recorder.

Rival wants a piece of Cypher
The Miami Herald, 2/20/2004

In what's shaping up as a multibillion-dollar global battle, Boston Scientific is expected to receive federal approval soon for a drug-coated stent that could provide massive competition to the Cypher manufactured by Cordis, based in Miami Lakes. The stakes are huge. In just the 10 months since its introduction in the United States, the Cypher has enjoyed unprecedented success for a medical device, having been inserted in 500,000 patients worldwide and having earned Cordis' parent company, Johnson & Johnson, about $1.5 billion in revenue.

Hospitals take high-tech, low-tech roads to curb medical mishaps
Baltimore Business Journal, 2/20/2004

Maryland hospitals have redoubled efforts to make patient safety their No. 1 priority. There's much at stake. Businesses and the public increasingly choose hospitals based on the quality of care they deliver. Maryland has been a pioneer in patient safety. It's been nearly 20 years since the Maryland Hospital Association started its "Quality Indicator Project" so hospitals could measure and assess their clinical performance in order to improve the quality of their care. This has proved so successful that hospitals in all 50 states and 12 foreign countries now participate.

FDA Looks to Chips to Thwart Drug Counterfeiters
Washington Post, 2/19/2004

To protect against the threat of counterfeit drugs, the Food and Drug Administration wants drugmakers, distributors and pharmacists to adopt new technologies – including embedded computer chips that would transmit identifying information – by 2007.

FDA Plans Bogus-Drug Crackdown
The Wall Street Journal, 2/19/2004

The Food and Drug Administration unveiled its plan to crack down on counterfeit prescription drugs, with a focus on pushing new technologies that would help track and protect medicines. But the initiative, which will combine with efforts by state regulators, doesn't include an immediate solution to a problem that investigators have identified as one of the most pressing: tracing and documenting the origins of drugs, which can sometimes change hands multiple times on the route from factories to drug-store shelves.

Hotel or hospital?

Washington Business Journal, 4/5/2004

As soon as you step through the doors, a concierge greets you, takes your bags and escorts you to your room. The concierge then wheels in a laptop computer and types in your personal information. You're not in The Ritz-Carlton. You're at the local hospital of the future.

Industry code alters drug firm, physician interaction

St. Louis Business Journal, 4/2/2004

Hotel food services managers used to light up when pharmaceutical companies scheduled events. But not any more. The change came in July 2002 when the pharmaceutical industry adopted standards developed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as the PhRMA Code. The code offers guidelines for how sales representatives and others involved in marketing pharmaceuticals should interact with health-care professionals. For companies that choose to follow the code, it eliminates entertainment of doctors and other health-care professionals as an acceptable form of interaction. Gone, too, are most meetings at golf resorts, since the code calls for meetings to take place at "a venue conducive to providing scientific or educational information. Specifically, this means no 'dine and dash,' no entertainment and recreational events (for example, sporting events or spa visits)," according to the association's code.

Finding a cure for what ails them: Hospitals
search for balance in correcting errors

Baltimore Business Journal, 4/2/2004

Mistakes happen. That is a fact of life. But when mistakes happen at a hospital, they could mean life, death or serious injury.

3M’s Rising Star

BusinessWeek Online, 4/2/2004

Jim McNerney was one of those boys: up early in the morning climbing trees while everybody else in the family was in bed, rousing his three younger brothers to play two-on-two hockey in their basement, running his high school's boys club, and pitching on the varsity baseball team. And he grew up to be one of those men: For three decades, Walter James McNerney Jr. has climbed the corporate ladder without a pause, uprooting his family every two to three years since earning his master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1975. He job-hopped from Procter & Gamble to McKinsey & Co. and then up through General Electric. On Jan. 1, 2001, after losing a three-way race to succeed John F. Welch as chief executive, he moved on yet again to become chairman and CEO of 3M, the first outsider to head the Saint Paul (Minn.) company in its century-long history. It has been a remarkably seamless transition. In many ways, 3M is a mini General Electric Co. Both are industrial conglomerates that seek to balance slowdowns in one industry with upturns elsewhere, and both have strong traditions of discipline, quality, and an intense focus on measuring and rewarding performance.

Many Hospitals Resist Computerized Patient Care

The New York Times, 4/6/2004

For years, technology has been held out as an important way to curb the scourge of medical errors. President Bush and Senator John Kerry have each called for a bigger commitment to computerization to reduce the 98,000 avoidable deaths a year that an eye-opening federal report in 1999 said might be caused by mistakes of doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel. Yet even now, despite pressure from large employers, unions and health care advocacy groups - and aggressive marketing by vendors - only a few dozen medical centers across the country are making full use of the latest computerized patient safety systems.

Bronx Hospital Embraces Online Technology
That Others Avoid

The New York Times, 4/6/2004

T o prescribe drugs for a hospital patient he visited recently, Dr. Matt Berger did not whip out a pen and paper. In fact, there was not a chart or prescription pad in sight on the ward. Instead, he sat down at a computer. Dr. Berger, chief of the medical service at Weiler Hospital of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, wanted to order a blood thinner for the patient. The computer checked whether the patient was already taking the medication, whether he was allergic to it, whether there might be a negative interaction with another drug he was taking, whether any of his lab tests indicated a danger in taking the new one, whether the dosage was correct for someone his size and age, and whether there was a cheaper alternative. In a blink, the computer warned of a potentially dangerous interaction with two antibiotics the patient was on, suggested a much lower dose of the blood thinner, proposed a less expensive drug and calculated the appropriate dose.

12 Simple Rules for Complex IT Projects

HealthLeaders Magazine, 4/7/2004

How do you begin to manage an IT implementation overhaul involving a landmark Chicago hospital? Mike Sommers, CIO of Cook County Bureau of Health Services, offers some simple rules that apply to project success big and small.

With New Chief, GE Healthcare Breaks Tradition

The Wall Street Journal, 4/8/2004

When Sir William Castell, the incoming chief executive and president of General Electric Co.'s medical unit, addressed his team earlier this year, he quickly demonstrated a management style considered quite apart from the GE mold.

For one thing, unlike most GE managers, he spoke without using a Power Point presentation. And rather than focus on the numbers he wanted to achieve, he asked managers and technicians to take part in a "dreaming session."

Hospitals 'think lean' to fight rising costs

The Business Journal (Minneapolis/St. Paul), 4/9/2004

Area hospitals and clinics are adopting "lean thinking" programs to cut the fat from their operations. The fight is not against obese patients, but rather against the escalating costs of health care. St. Louis Park-based Park Nicollet Health Services, Bloomington-based HealthPartners and Minneapolis-based Allina Hospitals and Clinics are all employing efficiency techniques created by the automobile industry.

To Fix Health Care, Hospitals Take Tips From Factory Floor

The Wall Street Journal, 4/9/2004

In the factories of Toyota Motor Corp., any worker who spots a serious problem can pull a cord and stop the assembly line. Richard Shannon, chairman of medicine at Allegheny General Hospital, is applying the Toyota technique to an intensive-care unit here. Just the other day, a nurse brought the medical "production line" to a halt. Candice Bena thought a 76-year-old patient needed a new intravenous line but couldn't get the radiology department to install one immediately. Fearing the patient would develop an infection, the nurse phoned Dr. Shannon. That was the equivalent of pulling "the 'andon' cord," says Dr. Shannon, using the Japanese word for "lantern." He immediately called the hospital's chairman of radiology, who within two hours installed the new IV line himself.

Hospital bills spin out of control

USA Today, 4/12/2004

Hospital sticker shock is hitting the USA. It isn't just $5-a-pill aspirin. Daily room charges exceed $5,000 in some New Jersey hospitals. An appendectomy in California, including about two days in the hospital, has an average list charge of $18,000. Nationally, federal data show the median charge for treating a heart attack is more than $20,000. Rapidly rising hospital charges have placed hospitals in the spotlight. Critics say hospitals are unfairly using their growing clout in many markets and charging far more than it costs to provide services.

As Obesity Surgeries Soar, So Do Safety, Cost Concerns

The Washington Post, 4/11/2004

The number of overweight Americans resorting to stomach-shrinking surgery is rising so rapidly that health experts and insurance companies are increasingly becoming alarmed about the safety, effectiveness and mounting costs of the operations. While the operations can produce dramatic benefits for very obese people, some hospitals and surgeons may be rushing too quickly to satisfy the surging demand, offering the lucrative procedures without adequate training, experience and support, experts say.

Barred as Rivals, Doctors See Some Hospitals in Court

The New York Times, 4/13/2004

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Bruce E. Murphy, a cardiologist and the son of a Baptist minister, has admitted patients to hospitals operated by Baptist Health, the dominant hospital system in Little Rock, Ark. Then in February, he received a letter from Baptist Health saying it might end his hospital privileges. Dr. Murphy recalls thinking, "It's not a very Christian thing to do, is it?" But religion, or health care for that matter, is not really the main issue. Dr. Murphy is one of the doctors with an ownership stake in a nearby competitor, the Arkansas Heart Hospital, where he also serves as medical director and where he sends many of his patients. And after seven years of watching Arkansas Heart vie for patients, Baptist Health, the largest health care organization in the state, is warning Little Rock's cardiologists that to invest in the competing hospital could mean no longer treating patients at a Baptist Health hospital.

Designing a Better Place to Die

The Wall Street Journal, 4/13/2004

Hospitals around the country are trying to make the ICU a better place to die. The intensive-care unit is a high-tech environment dedicated to saving lives. But the reality is that about 20% of all U.S. deaths occur there in the midst of its blinking monitors, ventilator tubes and busy white-coat clad staff. Hospitals are increasingly devoting more resources to making those who die there more comfortable. The goal is to achieve a peaceful death in which a person slips away surrounded by family and friends.

Hospitals put medical skills on display with live webcasts

Baltimore Sun, 4/13/2004

Hospitals are increasingly producing live streaming video of their surgeries and posting them on the Internet, where they're available to anyone - sort of ER meets reality TV. Such surgical webcasts are often a teaching tool. Doctors who watch them can generally take an exam for continuing education credit. But much of the impetus for the webcasts has come from hospital marketing departments, which believe this is a new way to build awareness of their services and attract patients.

With Tiny Brain Implants, Just Thinking May Make It So

The New York Times, 4/13/2004

Can a machine read a person's mind? A medical device company is about to find out. The company, Cyberkinetics Inc., plans to implant a tiny chip in the brains of five paralyzed people in an effort to enable them to operate a computer by thought alone.

Project uses computers to analyze nursing care

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4/12/2004

Nurses at three Aurora Health Care hospitals are turning to technology to reduce costs and speed patient recovery. A new project involving Aurora; Cerner Corp., a Kansas City, Mo., health care information technology company; and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will analyze how nurses care for patients and then suggest improvements.

As Tech Spreads, Hippocrates Dawdles

The Washington Post, 4/14/2004

One of the great anomalies of the U.S. health care system is that it is one of the most technically advanced industries and one of the most backward.

Virtual Colonoscopy Method Questioned

The Associated Press, 4/14/2004

The accuracy of virtual colonoscopy, which provides a computer-generated 3-D view of the colon, varies considerably, depending on the training and methods of the doctors performing it, researchers say. The cancer-detecting procedure is less reliable than previously thought and not ready for widespread use,