When hospitals make you sicker
Mar 22, 2013, 6:21 AM | Updated: 7:45 am
In the airline industry, an unsafe plane gets grounded until the problem is fixed. But in health care, he says, safety is YOUR responsibility! )AP Photo/File)
Did you see the latest list of the safest hospitals? It was compiled by Consumer Reports and it found that the safest hospital scored only 74 out of 100.
“This remains a huge problem. Hospitals are dangerous places to be.”
On CBS This Morning Dr. John Santa, who supervised the survey, said that too often, hospitals will, by mistake, give you a NEW infection on top of whatever it is you already have! The treatment for which they will then BILL YOU FOR:
“I’m sad to say, I think in many hospitals, the number priority is making money.”
In the airline industry, an unsafe plane gets grounded until the problem is fixed. But in health care, he says, safety is YOUR responsibility!
“Patients have to be constructively assertive,” said Santa. “They need to be asking questions, participating in their care.”
How about that. It’s your job, as the sick person, to assertive.
Quick tip – speak up before the anesthetic kicks in.
Surveys like this assume that we can somehow use this information to be better health care shoppers – the way you shop for a safe car or a healthy breakfast cereal. I guess you’re supposed to reach for the April issue Consumer Reports with one hand as you’re clutching your chest with the other.
But surveys don’t even agree. The highest-score in the Consumer Reports survey went to Bellin Memorial Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin. But other rating sites like Healthgrades.com and US News – don’t even mention it. So before you get sick, you have to pick a survey you believe, then pick a hospital you trust, and then, I suppose, assertively tattoo its name on your chest.
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
