“I practiced for 30 years without knowing how long patients waited to see me,” says Dr. Robert Mecklenburg of Seattle’s Virginia Mason. After meeting with employers, “you realize how important it is to see patients when they need to be seen,” Mecklenburg says,. “Any wait is not OK.”
The purpose of the new center is to evaluate the effectiveness of hospital’s improvement initiatives more rigorously and publish the results in medical journals and other publications.
Swedish Medical Center’s First Hill Hospital and Virginia Mason Medical Center both make the “Top Hospital” list put out each year by The Leapfrog Group, a health-quality improvement group.
From our inbox: Seattle’s PATH teams up with MERCK for maternal health project. Polyclinic launches clinical research division. Virginia Mason and Wenatchee Medical Center form heart affiliation.
As health-care costs spiral ever upward, hospitals race to build free-standing emergency rooms and expand existing ERs. Hospitals say it makes business sense, but critics say the hospital arms race is too costly for businesses, government and families.
Evergreen Healthcare and Virginia Mason will remain two distinct entities. Neither organization foresees any reduction in services or staff as a result of this partnership.
Medicare’s new Hospital Compare website allows you to compare hospitals side-by-side on a variety of patient safety and patient satisfaction measures. But are the comparisons fair?
Magazine also rates the three Seattle hospitals and Seattle Children’s as some of the best in the nation.
Kay A. Branz was previously vice president of Communications and Marketing for the American College of Healthcare Executives based in Chicago.
Thought your hospital room was dirty? Did your nurse sometimes ignore you? If so, the hospital has a new reason to worry: Patient gripes soon will affect how much hospitals get paid by Medicare.
Two Seattle researchers who study the role the immune system has on the development of Type 1 diabetes have won national recognition for their work.
Swedish has added four physicians to its Gastroenterology team: Drs. John Brandabur, Drew Schembre, Nick Procaccini and David Patterson.
LocalHealthGuide is a health news and information web service for Seattle and the Puget Sound Region. We are independent and unaffiliated with any hospital, medical association or insurer. If you have questions or if your group has an upcoming event that you would like us to cover, please let us know by going to our "Contact Us" page and dropping us a note. -- Michael McCarthy, Editor
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Seattle Times Health News
Experts divided over recommendation to screen children for cholesterol
Some clinicians say universal screening is an important tool to help identify children who are genetically predisposed to high cholesterol and to pinpoint others who could benefit from treatment. Others express concerns that screening may do more harm than good.
People in state high-risk insurance plans often feel left behind
The federal health law set up new plans that are cheaper and more comprehensive than the older ones run by states but consumers need to go without insurance for six months to qualify.
Peeking in on your doctor’s notes
Although federal law guarantees patients the right to examine and get copies of their medical records, providers haven’t always made it easy to do so. But the movement to give patients direct access to their health information has picked up steam, and policymakers have encouraged it as a way to empower patients to help manage their health and their medical care.
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