So, we all know that there are some hospitals that excel in some things ... from cancer care, to neurological diseases. But how do you know what you need? Very few hospitals have excellent care in every respect, and with all the rankings and gushing ads for hospitals ... how do you choose where to go for your care? We're talking to the excellent Dr. Mehmet Oz this hour, along with others, to help guide your choices. What has your experience been?
Blog of the Nation
How about costs?
I have heard it is illegal for doctors or hospitals to publicly posts (or advertise) what a procedure will cost the patient.
Choose a hospital? I don't have the liberty to choose a hospital unless I am willing to pay out-of-pocket. My insurance company makes the choice for me. I work at a non-profit hospital whose for-profit entity has developed its own insurance company in which I am financially forced to join that dictates I must choose my hospital unless it is for services not provided by my institution.
What is a traveler to do?
I travel as an athlete, and sometimes I don't even know where I'm going in a city until I get there. Are there some guidelines I can use while on the road? Are privates better than publics? Does neighborhood give any indication?
Doctors and nurses are not the only professionals taking care of you in the hospital. I am a medical technologist, (I run laboratory tests), and would recommend that you make sure everyone who comes to care for you checks your identification bracelets and labels all the tubes and specimens collected before they leave your bedside to avoid errors.
The Dr. Oz quipped that if listeners knew someone that would make a great nurse send them his way, presumably to attend nursing school.
Really?
There's an ongoing shortage of slots in nursing schools and shortage of nursing faculty. Students qualified for nursing school are being put on waiting lists.
The shortage was created by a combination of demographics(retiring nurses), women moving away from nursing and 1970's era policies by national nursing boards to reduce the number of nurses during a period when there was a surplus.
Dr. Oz, you say you are at NY Presbyterian Hospital? We spent an evening in the ER there last October after my husband fell flat on his face in the street. We spent a "lovely" 5 hours there. No one came to provide "nursing care" to his facial injuries, the place was filthy dirty, med students asked the same questions over and over and the final straw was when the head honcho came in and said, "You can go now--get yourself cleaned up-everything is OK" WHAT!!!! Where is this wonderful nursing staff you say you have there?? If it had not been for an EMT, who could see what the situation was like, I would not have had any supplies to take care of his facial abrasions--he packed up a grocery bag of supplies for my use in the hotel room where we were staying. Since then we have learned that everything was NOT OK--he had a suborbital fracture on the left side of his face--we were called about that weeks later. We are now being billed for blood work THAT WAS NEVER DRAWN and for a urinalysis THAT WAS NEVER TAKEN. We are in a battle over that. I am an RN--I was appalled at the treatment we received at NY Presbyterian Hospital ER--this most wonderful place??? I don't think so!!
Tbank God I'm healthy! (Knock on wood) Unfortunately, my best source for medical info is online. My health insurance doesn't give me much room to "chose" my doctor or hospital. And out of those I can chose from, most do not accept new patients anymore or cannot get me in for an appointment for several months.
Regarding the caller Charles from Phoenix Arizona. His father died from an adverse drug reaction while at a hospital. I too suffered a near fatal drug reaction. I was given the drug Hepatitis Interferon, and had to go to an ER due to violent convulsions and a racing heart, (3 times normal rate). At the ER I was abused, taunted, and medically neglected. (Because I had Hepatitis, which I attributed to a medical procedure?) Had I not realized I had my cell phone, I believe I would be dead today. Only after I called 9-1-1 was I reconnected to emergency medical equipment, which had been removed a hour earlier so that a chest x-ray could be taken. The x-ray was needed because my blood oxygen had fallen to 80% and I had started coughing.
Lessens? (1) Like Dr. Oz recommends always have a relative there with you in the hospital (2) If a nationwide database recalling such antedotes were in place, I believe that lives would be saved and malfeasence reduced (3) A problem not addressed by any guest is that US medical care is controlled by big money. Our insurers by far get paid the most, and our doctors as well. Malfeasence is 'hushed up' because it would reduce the amount of money going into the medical system.
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