Hospitals lack transparency, oversight, reports say (patients suffering taxpayers footing the bill)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4839

8 April 2011

ST. PAUL - Two recent media reports shed fresh light on a troubling trend inside Minnesota’s hospitals – that an ongoing lack of transparency, accountability and oversight leaves patients suffering and taxpayers footing the bill.

According to a recent story in Modern Healthcare, Minnesota hospitals fall far below the national average when it comes to the area of “charity care” - care and services provided to low income patients for free or at a reduced cost. Tallying a paltry 2 percent, the state’s hospitals pale in comparison to hospitals around the nation that average 6 percent of their financial resources being dedicated to charity care.

Notable Minnesota hospitals on the list include the world-renowned May Clinic, which averages just 1 percent, and Fairview Health Services, which reported a miniscule 0.6 percent.

“These hospitals are abandoning any obligation of paying property taxes here in Minnesota because they promised to make it up in services they would provide to the poor and vulnerable through charity care,” said Minnesota Nurses Association President Linda Hamilton, RN. “It’s another example of why our hospitals cannot be trusted to do the right thing when no one is looking.”

A formal comment issued by the Minnesota Hospitals Association in an April 6 story on KSTP-TV infuriated nurses even further. “When MHA claims their contributions help more Minnesotans than paying property taxes, I don’t buy it,” Hamilton said. “Who are they to make those decisions? I didn’t elect them, and they’re making decisions about our public tax dollars that should be debated in a public forum.”

In another development, the April 7 issue of Health Affairs reveals that adverse events occur in hospitals 10 times more than reported. What’s even more disturbing to registered nurses is that the voluntary reporting systems, such as the ones in place in Minnesota’s hospitals, are dangerously inferior to other, more sophisticated processes. One tool, developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, detected 354 adverse events, while voluntary reporting uncovered only four. This means 90 percent of the instances that harm patients, who entrust their healing to hospital care, go undetected in Minnesota hospitals.

“Nurses are puzzled every year with the MHA-designed Adverse Event Report because it simply does not match up with our day-to-day experience,” Hamilton said.

FULL story at link.

[Donnachaidh]

1. and doctors scream for MORE tort reform in THEIR favor

yeah -- that'll fix the problem...