Will Ebola Vanquish the MBAs Who Run Our Hospitals?

[Sam1]

Yves here. This discussion from the BBC gives a damning picture of the performance of the supposedly “best of all possible worlds” US health care system has been in dealing with Ebola:


The Dallas Presbyterian Hospital treated one Liberian, Thomas Duncan, who died. From caring for him, two nurses have now contracted the disease.

Nearly 80 health workers are under observation. It is claimed by the biggest nursing union that those charged with his care did not have the right protective clothing, flesh was exposed, there were no clear guidelines of what to wear, how to wear it, and how to disrobe.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concedes that it is possible flesh was left exposed when treating Duncan. And that is why among those nearly 80 still under observation, no one can rule out the possibility that there will be further cases.

This is a crude, and damning, statistic but so far Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) has treated thousands of people in West Africa with Ebola, and has seen 16 medical workers contract the disease. This hospital in Dallas has treated just one patient, and has two sick healthcare staff.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/10/will-ebola-vanquish-the-mbas-who-run-our-hospitals.html

[notrightatall]

1. Short answer. No. Not until profit is removed from our health care system.

[rock]

6. Yep

Welcome aboard!

[djean111]

2. No. They are well-protected by money and power.

The blame will, as always, be assigned at the lowest level, and there will be press releases and conferences where reform will be promised. That's all.

[GeorgeGist]

3. Probably be replaced by lawyers ...

ala the Ebola czar.

[KeepItReal]

4. K&R

Good find

[riverwalker]

5. absolutely stunning article n/t

[Runningdawg]

7. I am a retired nurse

and not a religious one at that. But from what I personally experienced, the care started to slide, cost started rising and employees became pawns when the nurses/nuns stopped running the hospitals.

[magical thyme]

8. good article. a couple points deserve correction.

The hospital first blamed the triage nurse for supposedly not asking Duncan's travel history. Then they modified it to the triage nurse "not communicating it to the entire team."

By the time they blamed it on the software workflow, they were on their 3rd excuse/blame somebody low. Only they have top tier medical records software, so Epic (or somebody) proved that to be false and it turned out it did appear on the doctor's chart. So then they quit talking about it because the one thing they won't do is go after the unnamed doctor.

They also, supposedly in the interest of helping other hospitals prepare for Ebola, published Duncan's intake form showing his temp at 100.4F. This is important because this, along with the flying nurse's low initial temp, underscores that the CDC threshold of 101.5 was too high (and the CDC has since lowered the threshold to 100.4F and may lower it again if it hasn't already).

And it's also important because if the hospital really had wanted to help other hospitals prepare, they also would have shown that while his intake temp was 100.4F, it spiked to 103 while he was in the ED. Instead, that came out later when his family released his full medical records.

[undeterred]

9. Replace them with gallon bottles of chlorox

[quadrature]

10. how many USSenate seats is this worth?

by 'this', I mean the lack of travel restrictions.

IMO,
2 races are tossups.
NC and Georgia,

with NH possibly headed toward being a tossup.