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April 2010: New report from the Pennsylvania School of Nursing finds that minimum Nurse to Patient Ratios as saving patient lives. Read Press Release

Feb 2010: CDC Posts Maps and Abstracts for how the states plan to spend the Healthcare-Associated Infections: Recovery Act Monies. View Map and Abstracts View KY Data

Feb 2010: CDC Releases Statement Which Supports Public Reporting of Hospital Acquired Infections Read News Release

Dec 2009: HW USA posts model legislation on Public Reporting of Healthcare Acquired Infections. View Sample Statue (Updated Feb 6, 2010)

Nov 2009: GAO Released Nursing Home Report. 10 Worst are in Kentucky. View Report Release

Oct 2009: New Mexico MRSA Collaborative reports a 48% reduction in hospital associated MRSA with the implementation of active surveillance cultures and appropriate MRSA control measures for MRSA positive patients. View News Release

Sept 2009: Joint Commission responds to HW USA's question regarding their policy of public reporting of healthcare acquired infections. View Response

Aug 2009: CDC Releases Cost Estimates of HAI. A Range of Annual Total Costs using CPI for Inpatient Hospital Services of $35.7 to 45.0 Billion Dollars was reported. Read Report

July 2009: Courier Journal agrees with HW USA's position on public reporting of HAI and MRSA. View Op Ed from CJ Editor (posted with permission of the CJ)

July 2009: Expert Organizations (APIC, SHEA, IDSA & CSTE) officially support public reporting of hospital acquired infections. View Support Letter View Public Reporting of HAI Section in HR 3200

July, 2009: Healthcare acquired infections planning template released from the CDC to the States. Download Template

June, 2009: The New Yorker -- "The Cost Conundrum" A battle for the soul of healthcare. Is conflict of interest and for profit medicine the reason for the almost three fold increase in costs between McAllen, TX and Grand Junction, CO -- Read and decide.
View News Article

April, 2009: Fox News covers the new Colorado Law on healthcare transparency Shopping for your doctor could save your life

Jan, 2009: Courier Journal. Discussion and Coverage of HB 67 which requires reporting of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) and MRSA. View News Article View Bill - HB67

Jan, 2009: The US Dept of Health and Human Services has release a draft action plan to prevent healthcare-associated infections. http://www.hhs.gov/ophs/initiatives/hai/draft-hai-plan-01062009.pdf

Several interesting statements are contained in this report:
"Another approach CMS has adopted as it transforms the Medicare program from a passive payer towards the goal of being an active purchaser of higher quality, more efficient health care is hospital pay-for-reporting."

"Public reporting enhances accountability in healthcare by increasing the transparency of quality data. Public reporting is designed to create both “indirect” financial and non-financial incentives to improve quality of care. Indirect financial incentives result when pubic reporting drives patients’ choices and, therefore, market share. Non-financial incentives include publicizing performance, reputations, competition, motivation, accountability, and public, recognition."

Nov 2008: Presentations and PowerPoints for the 2008 Conference for Healthcare Transparency and Patient Advocacy can be viewed at: View Presentations

Nov 2008: The Joint Commission has been designated by CMS to be a "deeming" authority for accrediting Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASC). As a condition, the Joint Commission is Required to provide the most recent accreditation survey of the facility to CMS. View The Federal Register See Related HW USA News Letter

Nov, 2008: Lexington Herald Leader covers the 2008 Conference on Healthcare Transparency and Patient Advocacy. View Report

Sept, 2008: A new GAO report on HAI was released (see enclosure) the report's summery states that reporting and definitions are standardized through the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance (NNIS) system but questions if every hospital's can be relied upon to produce accurate data. View Report

Sept, 2008: A recent article in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram places the spot light again on Joint Commission Accreditation. "Value of hospital accreditations under review" View Article This follows other reports concerning hospitals in the VA System (Salisbury NC View Article and Marion, ILL View Article ) along with the American Nurses Association Lawsuit against the Dept of Health and Human Services regarding inadequate staffing at facilities. View News Release

June, 2008: Massachusetts Medicaid announced it will no longer pay for preventable hospital errors. See Boston Globe Article

June 14, 2008: American Nurses Association releases "Safe Staffing" poll results of over 10,000 nurses -- See Detailed Results Result highlights include:

· 73% of nurses asked don't believe the staffing on their unit or shift is sufficient.
· 59.8% of those asked said they knew of someone who left direct care nursing due to concerns about safe staffing.
· 48.2% would not feel confident having someone close to them receiving care in the facility where they work.
· 36% rarely or never take their full meal break.

June 5, 2008: New York State Medicaid announced it will no longer pay for 14 hospital acquired adverse events and never events. See Announcement

May 15, 2008: Recently posted on Hospital Compare website is the National data reporting that 60% of patients always receive help as soon as they wanted and that 68% reported that here room and bathroom were "always" clean has been touted in some media as a good performance.

However, what happened to the other 40% who did not report getting immediate help. This seems unacceptable when Medicare regulations demand immediate availability of an RN to care for patients. See Medicare Regulation Section 482.23(b)

In addition, clean rooms and bathrooms not reported by 38% of patients. The severe problem the US is having with MRSA and Multiple Resistant Drug Organisms in Hospitals makes the lack of cleanliness reported by patients unacceptable.

April 7, 2008: Summary of an article on who pays for the cost of medical errors by Michelle Mello, PhD et.al. by the Commonwealth Fund: "On average, hospitals externalized 78 percent of the costs of all injuries and 70 percent of the costs of negligent injuries." "On average, hospitals absorbed $238 of injury-related costs for every patient admitted that year. They externalized, or passed on, $1,775 in injury-related costs per admission." "While adverse events result in substantial costs, hospitals bear only a small proportion of these costs and therefore have few financial incentives to invest in patient safety interventions." Payment reforms may be the answer. Read Summary

March 24, 2007: Estimated that 62 Million CT Scans are performed annually in the United States and may be responsible for 1.5% to 2.0% of all cancers. Read NEJM Article.
To obtain an estimate of radiation dosage for specific X-Ray and CT Scan studies go to:
American Imaging Management

March 14, 2008: Testimony in the Kentucky Senate Health and Welfare Committee indicated that there were not enough hospital beds to separate MRSA carriers from other patients. Why then is the Certificate of Need preventing hospital construction. Read the Comments

Feb. 25, 2008: Bill for Mandatory Public Reporting of Healthcare Acquired Infections and Multiresistant Drug Organisms has been filed in the Kentucky Senate by Senator Vernie McGaha. http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/08RS/SB183/bill.doc

Marion IL, Veterans Administration Hospital has been found to have severe problems dating back to 2006 and received the Gold Seal of Approval from the Joint Commission in 2007. Read More: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,326187,00.html
http://www.qualitycheck.org/qualityreport.aspx?hcoid=2869

Nov 27, 2007: Evidence from California shows an increase in the number of Licensed RNs associated with the passage of minimum registered nurse to patient ratios and an increase in graduates from nursing programs. (Download report Spetz, 2007). Orsolini-Hain and Malone (Policy, Politics and Nursing Practice, 2007 p 165 ) stated: "Although other reasons may partly explain this increase, stabilizing nurse-patient ratios may actually help retain experienced nurses by creating a more realistic workload." These authors also concluded that simply training more nurses will not solve the problem and that mandatory nurse-patient ratios should be implemented.

Nov 13, 2007: The United States ranks 41 out of 171 countries in material mortality having a rate of 1 in 4,800. This is far higher than the rate of 1 in 16,400 found in the top 10 European and industrialized nations. The Lancet Yahoo News

Oct 22, 2007: Kentucky's citations of nursing homes is half the national average. Questions regarding lack of enforcement raised. Lexington Herald Leader

Oct 2007: Dr John Van Arsdall II, MD, MS discusses the role of Hospitalists or physicians who work for and solely admit and take care of patients in the hospital. A new hospital dynamic has been created which prevents effective physician action (Editorial Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association -- October 2007 ).

"Hospitals can make or break consultants. This can be especially true when under the direct influence of hospitals themselves. Hospitals may hold financials overhead by controlling directly the referrals to hospitalists for their own primary care groups. The hospitalists may also be influenced by direct salaries from these hospitals. The hospitalists plays a much larger role in who works and who doesn't, thus having a huge effect on the medical food chain."

The above dynamics is why conditions in Hospitals may not be corrected internally.

Oct 1, 2007: Kentucky and West Virginia -- Hundreds of nurses are on strike at Appalachian Regional Hospitals over understaffing and patient safety concerns.
Newspaper Report Newspaper Report

Aug 1, 2007: Health Watch USA received certification as a Community Leader for Healthcare Transparency by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Dept. Health and Human Resources. View Certificate

June 13, 2007: Commonwealth Fund Releases State Score Card. Kentucky is 45th in the United States falling behind in access, quality and cost.
Press Release Executive Summary Full Report

May 31, 2007: Report by the Danville, VA Register and Bee states that the Joint Commission does not release complete results and that "nurse to patient ratio is not one of the areas scored".
Read Hospital Unveils Evaluation Blog: http://danvilleregional.blogspot.com/

April 20, 2007: Salisbury, NC the Veterans Administration Hospital has received the Joint Commission's "Gold Seal of Approval" but is now accused of poor patient care and suspicious deaths.
AP Article Charolett Observer Charolett Observer & Event Time Line

April 18, 2007: Kentucky has not enacted regulations to allow the development of quality assurance standards for facilities KRS216B.155(1), to develop patient care needs KRS216B.160, or to protect health care workers from retaliation that report problems and safety issues KRS 216B.165.

April 6, 2007: Newly Release Policy Report on Consumer Driven Health Care -- Transparency of Quality Costs, Value and Certificate of Need.
Word Count 5915. Download PDF 570 K

March 2007: Kentucky passes new legislation, A statue relating to large group health benefit plans. Amend KRS 304.17A-846 to direct health insurers to provide certain information to large group health benefit plans upon request of the plans; require the insurer to provide additional utilization data to help the employer measure costs in certain areas; provide under certain circumstances that nonpublic personal health information can be provided to large group health benefit plans in compliance with the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. View SB 175

Feb 23, 2007 Mark Botti from the US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, testifies before the Georgia Legislature on the impact of the certificate of need ( CON )on healthcare markets
-- Read Full Report.

Feb 2007: Legislation Filed in Washington State Senate to require minimum nursing staffing ratios. View Proposed Legislation

Feb 2007: Dept. Health and Human Services' Secretary Mike Leavitt calls for support of the four "cornerstone" actions of the recent Presidential Executive Order calling for the – interoperable health IT; transparency of quality; transparency of price; and incentives for high-value health care:
Letter Calling For Support Document of Supporting Industries

Dec. 30, 2006: Dr. Kevin Kavanagh (picture left) receives the key to the City of Nicholasville, from Mayor John Martin, for his work to promote health care in Jessamine County. News Release Dec 30, 2006

Sept 16, 2006: The Kentucky Medical Association passed without incident or debate a provision to repeal Kentucky's Certificate of Need Law. Learn More About the Certificate of Need

July 2, 2006: KY Governor's Office Using Fuzzy Math to Determine Hospital Cost Effectiveness. Revenues are being used NOT actual patient charges. Learn why this hides true health care charges.