Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Calif. Hospital To Pay $550K Following Investigation Into Hundreds Of Cases Of Patient Dumping
The Associated Press: LA Hospital To Pay $550K In Homeless Patient Dumping Case
A Los Angeles hospital suspected of discharging hundreds of homeless patients and dumping them at bus and train stations instead of shelters or other facilities agreed to pay a $550,000 legal settlement, prosecutors announced Monday. Silver Lake Medical Center, which operates a 118-bed psychiatric facility, agreed to stop the practice and put policies in place to make sure homeless patients are delivered to facilities that can care for them, City Attorney Mike Feuer said. (7/2)
Stat: Study Find Hierarchies, Gender Dynamics Driving Conflict On Surgical Teams
A team of researchers at Emory University and Kaiser Permanente sat in on 200 surgeries at three different teaching hospitals, and logged each and every social exchange between clinical team members. What they discovered were complicated subcultures in which well-understood hierarchies and gender dynamics contributed to conflict — or helped alleviate it. ... [Laura] Jones and her colleagues found that the gender composition of teams was strongly associated with its level of cooperation. If the attending surgeon was of the opposite gender as that of most other personnel in the OR, cooperation was more common. (Farber, 7/2)
And in other hospital news —
Georgia Health News: Feds: Hospitals Were Not ‘Double Paid,’ But Are Still On The Hook
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicated last week that hospitals were essentially paid twice for the same patient services. A CMS spokeswoman said Monday that the double-payment assertion was not correct, but that the payments were improper because they were made by the wrong entity. (Miller, 7/2)
The Star Tribune: In Marked Turnaround, Anoka Mental Hospital Restores Federal Compliance
Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center, a state psychiatric hospital that two years ago was in jeopardy of losing federal funding over serious violations of health and safety standards, has received a clean bill of health from regulators. The 110-bed hospital, which treats many of the state's most complex psychiatric patients, received notice that it is in full compliance with federal rules for patient safety and hospital operations, following two unannounced visits early this year by inspectors from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to a letter from the agency made public last week. (Serres, 7/2)
