Reporter covers patient ‘dumping’ from inside
Filed under: Health journalism, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Michael Vitez has been given free reign for several months now to explore and report on Abington Memorial Hospital as an embedded reporter.
The result has been a mix of deep, wonderfully chosen anecdotes accompanied by quotes and hospital introspection that go far beyond what you often see in “look what went wrong at the local hospital!” stories.
His latest installment explores the effect of patient “dumping” on hospitals through the story of an 83-year-old illegal immigrant from Korea whose family dropped her off at Abington out of desperation and had no intention of picking her up on her discharge date. Vitez’ report is distinguished by his honest, thoughtful approach to both patient and caregiver.
In previous dispatches, he has chronicled how Abington is working to prevent with hospital-acquired infections and, as Covering Health has covered previously, palliative care.
Lack of equipment, protocol could be deadly
Judith Graham of the Chicago Tribune reports that the city’s ambulances don’t have equipment that can detect whether a heart attack is an ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the most consistently deadly kind of heart attack.
Complicating the situation, only about half of Chicago’s hospitals can perform the preferred treatment for STEMI heart attacks – balloon angioplasty – expeditiously around the clock, Feldman said. Yet the Fire Department takes heart attack patients to the closest hospital, regardless of its medical expertise.
In other U.S. cities, that equipment allows paramedics to alert hospitals so that doctors can be fore prepared to treat the patient as soon as they arrive at the hospital. Other cities also have hospitals that are designated as “STEMI ready” and paramedics can bypass closer hospitals to take patients to one that provides appropriate care.
Experts say that without the equipment, “”treatment is often delayed, increasing the chances that the patient will suffer permanent heart damage or die.”
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