Latest news with #patientCare
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Can Hong Kong convince private hospitals to be clear and upfront with fees?
Knee replacement surgery is one of the most common operations performed in Hong Kong, with a long waiting time at public hospitals that drives many to pay more for private treatment. Advertisement But a patient hoping to compare prices at the city's 14 private hospitals will find it hard to get a clear idea of how much the procedure may cost. Only half the hospitals provide information online for knee replacement surgery packages, with prices ranging from HK$88,000 (US$11,200) to about HK$330,000 for one knee. One made clear that doctors' fees were not included, meaning the final bill could be considerably higher. The Post called six other private hospitals, posing as a patient's family member, but could not get a clear indication of what they charged. Advertisement Staff at four hospitals said the patient would need a medical consultation first. The other two gave only rough estimates of between HK$180,000 and HK$300,000. 'We do not provide such pricing information. You have to ask your doctor,' a staff member at one hospital said. 'Each doctor charges differently.'
BreakingNews.ie
28-05-2025
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Doctor admits professional misconduct over patient who suffered fatal brain injury
A hospital doctor has admitted professional misconduct over an incident in which a patient with meningitis suffered a fatal lack of oxygen to the brain following a dispute with nursing staff over whether a breathing tube had become dislodged. Ilankathir Sathivel appeared before a medical inquiry to face a series of allegations over his treatment of a patient on February 23rd-24th, 2019, while working as a registrar anaesthetist at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown in Dublin. Advertisement The hearing before the Medical Council's fitness-to-practise committee heard Dr Sathivel was making a number of admissions in relation to the care he provided to the 59-year-old male, identified only as Patient A, who had been admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU) after being diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. The committee was informed that Dr Sathivel accepted that his failure to have regard for the stated view of a clinical nurse manager, Rosanne Kenny, that Patient's A endotracheal tube had become dislodged at around 3.58am on February 24th, 2019, constituted professional misconduct. Written statements from several nursing staff at CHB showed Ms Kenny had twice raised her concern with the anaesthetist that the tube had become displaced as ventilation alarms had sounded to show Patient A was suffering a lack of oxygen. However, Dr Sathivel insisted the tube was correctly inserted and was not responsible for a deterioration in the patient's condition. Advertisement Counsel for the Medical Council, Neasa Bird BL, said the anaesthetist's disregard of the nurse's concern represented a serious falling short of the standards expected of medical practitioners. Although Dr Sathivel had responded immediately to a call for assistance, Ms Bird said he had initially conducted his assessment of Patient's A airway from the foot of the bed. She claimed he subsequently relied on his view that the tube was not dislodged from observation of the patient's chest rise and his examination with a stethoscope without carrying out a visual check on the equipment. The inquiry heard he also delayed re-intubating the patient and in seeking to perform a laryngoscopy to assess the position of the tube. Advertisement The inquiry heard Patient A suffered a cardiac arrest at 4.15am lasting 13 minutes as a result of a lack of oxygen which resulted in a severe brain injury. A postmortem showed he subsequently died on March 2nd, 2019, from a lack of oxygen to the brain with meningitis as a contributory factor. Ms Bird noted that it was Dr Sathivel's first-ever shift as the on-call registrar in the hospital's ICU. However, she said the challenges of the role should have been with the competency of the anaesthetist. Advertisement Ms Bird said the view of two expert witnesses who reviewed the case said it was clear that Dr Sathivel's failure to deal with the critical incident in a timely manner had resulted in 'an adverse outcome.' The inquiry arose following a complaint made to the Medical Council by the then general manager of CHB, Barbara Keogh Dunne. Ms Bird said an internal review of the critical incident by CHB had raised a concern that Dr Sathivel's competency may pose a risk to patient safety. Dr Sathivel, originally from India and who qualified as a doctor in 2005, has been registered to practise in Ireland since 2012 and currently works as a consultant anaesthetist at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin. Advertisement The anaesthetist also made admissions to several other allegations in relation to his treatment of Patient A and accepted they amounted to poor professional performance. They included his failure to adequately assess the patient's airway in a timely manner and his failure to have adequate regard for the deterioration in the man's condition after his skin had turned blue and his heartbeat had slowed to a dangerous level. Dr Sathivel also accepted that he did not write up any medical notes for 12 hours about his treatment of Patient A in the emergency department as well as failing to inform and brief the consultant anaesthetist at CHB about the critical incident in a timely manner. Offering his condolences and an apology to Patient A's family, counsel for Dr Sathivel, Cathal Murphy BL, acknowledged that the allegations against his client related to a serious and tragic event. However, Mr Murphy said what happened with Patient A was 'an isolated incident' in the anaesthetist's career that was not due to any lack of competence but 'human factors.' Ireland Doctor pleads guilty to stealing and forging presc... Read More He said Dr Sathivel had taken steps to improve his skills set over the following years and had been a consultant since 2020 with no further incidents about his performance and competence. Mr Murphy claimed the appropriate sanction to be imposed on his client was censure. Ms Bird asked the fitness-to-practise committee to take into account that the admissions made Dr Sathivel by related to 'a serious matter.' Based on the anaesthetist's admissions, the chairperson of the inquiry, Paul Harkin, said the fitness-to-practise committee would convey its recommendations on sanction, which are not made public, to the Medical Council in due course.
Medscape
28-05-2025
- Business
- Medscape
Five Florida Hospitals Sue Safety Ratings System
Five Tenet Healthcare hospitals are suing a leading provider of hospital safety ratings in federal court, alleging that it 'pressures hospitals to participate and pay or else suffer devastating and misleading public 'safety' grades.' The South Florida hospitals all got 'D' or 'F' grades in the fall 2024 ratings from Leapfrog Group's Hospital Safety Grade website after they declined to answer the company's surveys. The hospitals also received poor overall and patient-satisfaction ratings from Medicare. Leah Binder, Leapfrog's president and CEO, told Medscape Medical News that the nonprofit organization stands by its ratings. 'The Tenet Healthcare system has disgraceful performance on patient safety,' she said, 'and that is what they should be spending their money to address.' The legal battle pits Tenet Healthcare, which made a net $20.7 billion in revenue last year, against a nonprofit with a recent annual revenue of just $7.6 million but significant influence over hospital reputations. Methodology Under Fire At issue: Should hospitals be punished when they decline to provide data for Leapfrog's safety ratings? Until recently, Leapfrog gave average scores on several measures to hospitals that refused to respond to surveys. The organization changed course as of the fall 2024 ratings and now automatically gives the lowest rating possible to nonparticipating hospitals on four of 30 measures — Computerized Physician Order Entry, Bar Code Medication Administration, Intensive Care Unit Physician Staffing, and Hand Hygiene Score. As a result, nonparticipating hospitals get worse safety ratings because their scores on these measures count toward their overall letter grades. Among the five hospitals that are suing, Good Samaritan (West Palm Beach), Delray (Delray Beach), and Palm Beach Gardens got 'F' grades. West Boca (Boca Raton) and St. Mary's (West Palm Beach) got 'D' grades. The lawsuit, filed on April 30, said the hospital stopped responding to Leapfrog's 'excessive' data requests in 2021. The hospitals contended Leapfrog 'relies on invented data for some hospitals but not others.' The lowest-possible rating (15/100) for handwashing at the Delray hospital, for example, is 'deceptively communicating to consumers that Delray Medical Center doctors and nurses don't adequately wash their hands, among other false statements — with no data whatsoever to support that conclusion.' Binder defended the change in methodology. 'We continuously received complaints from hundreds of hospitals that do report to the survey,' she said. An expert panel recommended a move toward standardized low scores for nonparticipating hospitals, she said, and Leapfrog changed its methodology. Ratings System Says It's Being Transparent Binder said Leapfrog, founded 25 years ago by employers and others seeking better hospital safety information, is open about its data and methods. Leapfrog uses patient satisfaction survey data that are used, in part, to determine physician compensation, raises, and bonuses. 'It's pretty easy for us to defend the responsibility with which Leapfrog issues these grades,' Binder said. 'Even if, for some reason, we felt like we wanted to show bias towards some hospital or against another hospital, it would be really hard to do that when we're putting the entire methodology out there.' According to Leapfrog, refusing to participate in the company's surveys isn't a ticket to a poor grade. About 20% of 2829 hospitals rated in the Spring 2025 Hospital Safety Grades report didn't respond to surveys, the company said in response to queries from Medscape Medical News . Among those, six got an 'A,' 20 got a 'B,' 380 got a 'C,' 167 got a 'D,' and 19 got an 'F.' Leapfrog described its methodology regarding the four measures in small print at the bottom of webpages that report individual hospital safety grades. See, for example, the Palm Beach Gardens hospital's ' handwashing' page on the Hospital Safety Grade website. 'I don't think it's that fine of print,' Binder said. 'If you're digging into it, you're going to see that we make it clear.' 'Self-Reported, Biased, and Subject to Manipulation' The lawsuit also claims that data provided by participating hospitals 'is self-reported, biased, and subject to manipulation.' Binder responded that self-reported data goes through an 'intensive verification process,' including on-site verifications at randomly selected hospitals each year. However, a 2019 New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst report noted that 'Leapfrog leadership stated that they had only done a formal audit for approximately five hospitals of about 2600 in the past year, and only 72 hospitals underwent an electronic audit.' The rate-the-raters report graded hospital quality ratings systems and gave a C to the Medicare system and a C-minus to Leapfrog. The US News & World Report grading system received a B, and Healthgrades got a D-minus. In the new lawsuits, the 5 hospitals also claim that Leapfrog 'has used the tens of millions of dollars of revenue it has collected from participating hospitals and other sponsors in its pay-to-play system to pay exorbitant salaries to its owner and executives. Between 2019 and 2023, [Leapfrog] has paid over 3 million dollars in salary and benefits to Leah Binder — its CEO.' 'Hospitals, researchers, and businesses can license Leapfrog data for a fee. This has no influence on ratings…,' Leapfrog said in a statement. The CEO of Tenet Healthcare, the owner of the five hospitals that are suing, made $24.7 million in compensation in 2024, according to Becker's Hospital Review. Hospitals Tout Performance but Ignore Federal Ratings The lawsuit described the five South Florida hospitals as award-winning and 'high-performing' with 'reputations for being high-quality healthcare systems that put patient care first.' However, the lawsuit failed to mention that the hospitals all received low scores from Medicare's hospital comparison tool. On a 5-star scale, Good Samaritan and St. Mary's have 1-star overall and patient-satisfaction ratings. Palm Beach Gardens has 1- and 2-star ratings on the measures, respectively, while West Boca and Delray have 2- and 1-star ratings, respectively. Their scores are 'among the worst in the country,' Binder said. 'They are performing extremely poorly in the eyes of their own patients.' The hospitals declined to speak on the record about the lawsuit or answer questions regarding their poor ratings under Medicare's grading system. In a statement to Medscape Medical News , they said, 'our hospitals are continuously working to improve the patient experience and have been recognized repeatedly for our leadership in quality, innovation, and compassionate care.' Legal Expert: Facts, Not Grades, Are Key How vulnerable is Leapfrog in court? Eric Goldman, JD, MBA, a professor at California's Santa Clara University School of Law, Santa Clara, California, who has studied online rating systems, said this case is different than a filmmaker suing a movie critic over a bad review. 'When it comes to something like hospitals, the consequences [of ratings] are much higher,' he told Medscape Medical News . 'You watch a bad movie, you lose 20 bucks and 2 hours of your time. You go to the wrong hospital, you might be dead.' Goldman suggested the legal issue isn't the grades themselves — which are opinion and therefore protected under the First Amendment — but whether Leapfrog is following its own rules. 'The legal question is whether, by stating a methodology and then failing to follow it, Leapfrog is publishing false information,' he said. 'What's made it false isn't their grade but the fact that the grade is a product of reliance upon inaccurate data or the failure to process that data in accordance with their stated policies.' He elaborated, 'I don't think that if Leapfrog assigns a hospital an 'F' that it would have the basis to sue. It might not be a credible grade, but it's still not actionable. But if they're reporting that the hospitals are not performing on certain criteria, that's the potential fact claim that could be the basis of a lawsuit.' According to Goldman, Leapfrog's strongest defense may be the market itself. 'Leapfrog is absolutely free to assign a grade however it wants. That is its prerogative, and that's constitutionally protected as an opinion,' he said. 'Ultimately, the market decides how credible they find Leapfrog's methodology. If people find it credible, they continue to use it. If they don't, they're not required to.'
CTV News
23-05-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Overcapacity concerns re-emerging in Saskatoon emergency rooms
Some patients at St. Paul's Hospital were forced to be treated in the waiting room because the emergency room was overcapacity. (Photo: Saskatchewan NDP)
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Letter: Graham Serjeant obituary
In 1969 I was the first British student to go on exchange to the University of the West Indies, and had a three-month attachment with sickle-cell disease researchers Graham Serjeant and his wife, Beryl, in Jamaica. Graham immediately told me that the textbooks describing what many patients called 'sick-as-hell disease' were all wrong. He and Beryl had quickly realised that with proper care, support and attention to detail, these patients could live far better and longer lives than had been thought possible. Doing clinics with Graham all across Jamaica in a battered VW van was such an education - likewise dancing the night away to ska and blue beat under the starry Jamaican skies.
