Bad Medicine
May 16, 2008 – 2:54 pm
From the lead article in the March 10, 2008 edition of Forbes came this headline “Bad Medicine”. The article then goes on to question why patients would chose to have care at big and dangerous hospitals when patients have a choice?
Some hospitals are very good but many are not “brimming with infectious bugs, systemic error and negative hospitality.” One in 200 patients who spend a night in the hospital will die of medical error. One in 16 will pick up an infection. Death from preventable hospital infections each year exceeds more than 100,000.
Patients have a choice; it’s called the specialty hospital. A recent University of Iowa study of tens of thousands of Medicare patients found that complication rates are 40% lower for hip and knee surgeries at specialty hospitals than at big community hospitals. A 2006 study funded by Medicare found that patients of all types are four times as likely to die in a full-service hospital after orthopedic surgery as they would after the same procedure in a specialty hospital.
In mid 2006, I began admitting patients to the Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago because the large teaching hospital with which I have been affiliated for 35 years could no longer provide the efficiency and the services I requested that met the standards I required to assure patient satisfaction. At the time I wasn’t aware of the innovations in care that would be afforded by my patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery at a specialty hospital. Soon, I will have completed over 600 hundred joint replacements at NOHC with a complication rate of less than 0.03%. The Forbes article suggests the “heart of the health care industry has failed the consumer.” Remember though, you as a patient have a choice, it’s called the specialty hospital where services are delivered with a concern for the hip and knee. Less costly, less infection, and greater satisfaction—its available to you in Chicago’s only specialty hospital, the Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago.
The Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital Blog was created to provide insightful brain, back, and joint information to people that struggle to find the right path in the maze of healthcare-related decisions they face today. The power of the internet is transforming health information and empowering people to take a front seat in managing their own health; correspondingly it has inspired Doctors Leonard Cerullo and Mitchell Sheinkop to share NOHC's cutting-edge resources with the online community.
Our interactive team will be posting periodic updates to the Neurologic & Orthopedic Hospital of Chicago Blog.
We hope that you will take a few seconds to subscribe to our future postings and look forward to providing you with valuable healthcare information for a successful treatment outcome and a speedy recovery.
