11 Calif. hospitals fined for preventable mistakes
Cheryl Clark writes for HealthLeaders Media that 11 California Hospitals were fined $25,000 each by the state for mistakes that put patients in immediate jeopardy or, in a few cases, even injured or killed them. Among the most egregious mistakes were a “man undergoing a leg amputation for cancer he never had,” a patient being set on fire during an eyelid-related procedure and a laundry list of equipment forgotten inside of patients.
This naming and shaming of errant hospitals has become a regular ritual in California, Clark reports:
Kathleen Billingsley, deputy director for the California Department of Public Health, said the 11 new fines bring the total of 115 monetary penalties against 80 hospitals to $2.87 million under a law that took effect Jan. 1, 2007. She has made public announcements about other batches of fines seven times previously, most recently Sept. 3.
According to the Web site’s “About Us” page, “HealthLeaders Media is a leading multi-platform media company dedicated to meeting the business information needs of healthcare executives and professionals.”
USA Today matches hospital quality data, tourism
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
USA Today’s Steve Sternberg and Jack Gillum put a new spin on federal Hospital Compare ratings and other hospital quality data, matching the ratings, as well as data on death rates, with popular travel destinations and the locations of state parks. The reporters make the case that travelers should keep hospital quality data in mind when planning vacations.
From the story, which also includes a list of poorly-rated hospitals in travel hotspots:
A USA Today analysis finds two dozen hospitals near popular travel destinations, as compiled by the National Travel Monitor, have death rates among the worst in the USA. A separate analysis shows that one of every four hospitals with high death rates for heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia — 94 of 402 — are near state parks.
Related
AHCJ Vice President Charles Ornstein, whose own hospital quality coverage has earned national recognition, recently updated his comprehensive “Road map for covering your local hospital’s quality” tip sheet with links to state-by-state resources and additional nationwide tools for journalists looking into hospital quality.
AHCJ article: Making sense of hospital quality reports
Book: Covering the Quality of Health Care: A Resource Guide for Journalists
Slim guide: Covering Hospitals: Using Tools on the Web
Free online training
On the Beat: Covering Hospitals: An innovative simulation guides you through the sources and resources you need to tackle the beat. You’ll tap into the same tools that you’ll use on the job, and you’ll have a virtual mentor to walk you through the maze of reports, statistics and sources. One story line teaches you about reporting on hospital quality
Data
Investigating hospitals: Find stories with ready-to-use Hospital Compare data: AHCJ has made it easier for journalists to compare hospitals in their regions by generating spreadsheet files from the HHS database, allowing members to compare more than a few hospitals at a time, using spreadsheet or database software. AHCJ provides key documentation and explanatory material to help you understand the data possibilities and limits.
Tip sheets
- How to cover your local hospital - Overview of many organizations that offer hospital quality ratings
- Sorting out hospital rankings
- Intro to investigating health data using spreadsheets
- Computer-assisted reporting basics: Investigating health data using spreadsheets
Reports
- Study: Hospital quality comparisons are inconsistent
- Performance data may not affect patient decisions
- GAO report on reliability of hospital quality data reported to CMS
- 2007 state quality data available
- Hospital quality resources by state
Hot Health Headlines
- Rating Hospital Heart Care
- Government releases new hospital death rates
- Mortality data and its use in quality improvement efforts
- Surgery death rates going public in U.K.
- Ranking Hospitals on Bang for the Buck
Poor, rural hospitals have higher death rates
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
USA Today’s Steve Sternberg and Jack Gillum expanded upon a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report showing higher death rates at the nation’s worst hospitals, adding their own analysis showing that death rates are also higher at hospitals in low-income and low-population counties.
AHCJ publication
Covering Hospitals: Using Tools on the Web
Tip sheets
Tools for covering hospitals: Financial documents
‘A Hidden Shame:’ Tips for reporting on deaths in mental hospitals
Ripping the cover off hospital finances
Computer-assisted reporting basics: Investigating health data using spreadsheets
Sorting out hospital rankings
Finding patterns and trends in health data: Pivot tables in spreadsheets
AHCJ articles
Sunshine Week: Some hospital quality measures online but more could be done
Making sense of hospital quality reports
Deciphering cost reports helps paint picture of hospital’s financial health
Reporter digs up Seattle hospital salaries
John Ryan of KUOW News in Seattle used publicly available data and records requests to localize the national debate on nonprofit compensation with a piece on top earners at Seattle-area hospitals. Ryan details his information-gathering process here and shares his list of top local earners.
Tip sheet
Digging Into Hospital Finances:
Five key documents for reporters and recent trends
Previous coverage
Ryan used a mix of local and national sources, getting explanations from some of the top earners (and perspective from some of the bottom earners) and quotes from those who believe nonprofit workers should not be earning that much money. He also included the thoughts of those who believe nonprofit hospitals need to pay competitive salaries in order to bring competitive talent.
Another story looks at the role of charity care and how much of it is provided: “Only three of the nonprofit hospitals in central Puget Sound give away more than 2 percent of their care to the poor: Providence Regional in Everett, Saint Clare in Lakewood, and Saint Francis in Federal Way. The Washington Department of Health tracks those figures.”
Sunshine Week: Some hospital quality measures online
Felice Freyer, a medical writer at The Providence (R.I.) Journal and a member of AHCJ’s Right to Know Committee, writes in an article for AHCJ that “In recent years, state and federal agencies have begun yanking data out of filing cabinets and opening their folders to the daylight of cyberspace.”
As Freyer points out, “The Internet offers vast new opportunities to answer every patient’s most pressing question: Am I entrusting my health to people who will take good care of me?”
Web sites that offer hospital quality data not only inform consumers, they prod everyone in health care to do a better job. Much more can and should be done to give the public better access to what the regulators know.
Read more of Freyers article.
Additional Sunshine Week coverage: Online health data varies by state
N.J. law would publicize detailed hospital error info
In an Associated Press story, Eli Segall looked at proposed legislation in New Jersey that would require hospitals to publish error information and would prevent hospitals from billing patients or insurers for procedures during which mistakes were made.
While current New Jersey law calls for the publication of statewide statistics for preventable mistakes, the proposed legislation would take it a step farther and require data to be shared for individual hospitals. Reports for 2005 and 2006 have been published under the current law; 826 mistakes - 40 percent of which were patient falls - were reported statewide.
According to one of Segall’s sources, patients were only billed for mistaken procedures in isolated cases under existing laws and that in many cases hospitals don’t bill anybody when egregious mistakes have been made and insurers may refuse payment when mistakes have been made.
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New at HealthJournalism.org
- AHCJ offers financial data about nonprofit hospitals
- Diversity in aging: Putting gray in the rainbow
- Southeast journalists eligible for regional fellowship program
- AHCJ-NLM Health Journalism Fellowship offers hands-on medical research training
- AHCJ announces 2011 winners of top health journalism awards
