Sun City Hospital gets another honor

Discussion in 'Medical and Health' started by pegmih, Jul 6, 2013.

  1. pegmih

    pegmih Well-Known Member

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    Banner Boswell Medical Center has been named one of the 100 Great Community Hospitals in the country by a leading hospital and health care industry trade publication.

    Earlier this year the Medical Center was again named one of the 100 top Hospitals by Truven Health Analytics.
     
  2. Cynthia

    Cynthia Well-Known Member

    If you have a serious illness it's best if you at least get a second opinion in a academic hospital (as opposed to a community hospital). I have worked in both. And after 40+ years in the business I know that community hospitals do not often treat the volume of patients for complete experience or have the latest equipment. They can be fine hospitals with great doctors and I'm not saying I wouldn't go to one. Just keep that in mind if you develop something serious like cancer. Pay cash, if you need to, for a second opinion at the best place you can find. This will give you the knowledge you need to direct your care at the community hospital if you plan to use it.
     
  3. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Interesting comments Cynthia. I know some may get excited about them, but the sad truth is our health care delivery system is way over rated. This single scene from the first season of the Newsroom kind of says it all. As Americans we love to believe that everything is just grand, but the fact is, its not.

    Prior to my retiring there were a bunch of us in health care trust funds who formed a coalition centered on quality care (rather than just looking at costs). It was an extensive process but our goal was to establish what we called "Centers of Excellence." Simply put, it was all outcome based care results that were quantifiable. As an aside, it was interesting to note that when patients used these Centers of Excellence the cost was overall less (usually because of less complications due to the doctors and hospital doing them did them right the first time).

    If I told you the pushback we got from the majority of hospitals you would be shocked (though being in the business you may better understand why they did better than I). We heard every argument as to why and threats that is we pursued this we may not be welcome in their facilities. In the end, they really didn't want people making decisions based on outcomes and worse yet they didn't want people to know just how bad they were or how seldom they performed some surgeries.

    I don't know about the folks awarding our hospital the platitudes, but I would be more impressed by a top 100 list that used raw data to determine how they got there. All too often these lists are far more arbitrary than they objective. Not saying anything bad about Banner Boswell, but Cynthia's points should not be discounted out of hand.
     
  4. Cynthia

    Cynthia Well-Known Member

    And I'm not saying anything bad about Banner either. I do not know anything about it.
     
  5. Cynthia

    Cynthia Well-Known Member

    B, I removed that other comment of mine because it sounded as if I were discounting your work with the COEs. I wasn't. The intent of the COEs was a good idea, using quality data instead of cost. But one issue I saw was that good doctors who helped complex patients could have negative outcomes (because of the complexity of the illness) and get caught up in data. It's supposed to be filtered out but it didn't always work. The number of surgeries performed, however, is significant data but other items can be hard to collect correctly. Anyway, I apologize if it sounded flip to the good work you did.
     
  6. BPearson

    BPearson Well-Known Member

    Cynthia: You most assuredly didn't offend me, I have developed the hide of a rhino. Your point is well made, the surgeons that take on the riskier patients will have lessor outcomes. Unfortunately I retired before this ever really got up a head of steam and I suspect once I left it didn't get far. Taking on the medical profession has almost always proven to be a fools game (just ask Clinton and Obama). These guys protect their own and hide behind the mantle of having the "best delivery system in the world." I don't know about the best, but certainly the most expensive.

    It's why I posted that clip from the Newsroom. It is so spot on. We love to believe in America being the best, having the best and everyone else being second class. Don't get me wrong, I love our country, but not at the sake of denigrating the rest of the world. Clearly we are different in many respects, but we tend to pretend things are better than they are.

    I learned a long time ago the best opportunity to fix what is broken is to admit it doesn't work. That first simple step leads to a logical approach as to how to fix it. The sad fact is so many people in the medical profession can tell you had bad it is, but the minute anyone tries to make changes they circle the wagons and kill the messenger.
     
  7. Cynthia

    Cynthia Well-Known Member

    Tell me about it. Nurse Practitioners have been fighting the MD lobbies for years. Frankly I'm surprised we were able to do as much as we have. I'm not against MDs in any way. But they should not get to make all the rules. It's only a money issue for them. They started it in 1930's, during the depression, when they sued the first nurse anesthetist (they didn't win). For years they had loved them, used them exclusively in the front lines of war, but when the money hit the fan suddenly the nurses weren't good enough. Not to say it's true of all MDs, many see the benefits.
     
  8. Anita Mae

    Anita Mae Member

    I always had good luck and care with Banner....Boswell Hospital in Sun City .....
     

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