 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
Seems I’ve covered little in terms of health care, of late, so my blog has suffered terribly. Fires, wolves and tribal fishing have taken over, so I haven’t gotten into any local health care stories, although I’ve thought of several I’d like to tackle (more…)
It comes as no surprise that nationwide, people are worried about getting sick from contaminated food, as reported in a front page story on Monday. Nor is it any wonder that locally, people are looking to buy produce grown right here in North Central Washington, as Wenatchee World reporter Rachel Schleif reported last week. (more…)
It was interesting for me to read Alejandro Gonzalez’ story in The Wenatchee World last week on neighbors’ reactions to expansion plans at Central Washington Hospital. I had hoped to try to get some of these reactions myself (more…)
So, what does it take in a presidential election year for a U.S. Congressman and Republican to publicly commend a U.S. Senator and Democrat? Apparently, a story in The New York Times labeling the action of one senator to protect the Wenatchee Valley Medical Center a “special dispensation.” (more…)
We’re trying to figure out if this is a story: Central Washington Hospital’s emergency room is busiest on Sundays. I don’t have numbers yet, but Natalie Noyd, the ER director, says visits are significantly higher that day — but not double that of another day.
Noyd says it’s likely a combination of things. First, there’s only one clinic open Sundays, and they close at 2 p.m. Second, Sunday is the day before Monday, when people go back to work/school. They realize they may not be able to get in to see their primary care doctor on Monday, and want to get something taken care of before the new week starts. And third, it’s a weekend day, when all of North Central Washington has more visitors, and people are out playing, and more apt to injure themselves than they would be sitting at a desk.
Here’s the quandary: Is this news? The Washington State Hospital Association says they don’t know of any standards that says a city the size of Wenatchee/East Wenatchee should have a clinic open Sunday afternoons and evenings. I searched the Internet and couldn’t find anything in the way of standards. I’m guessing the best I can do is call a few hospitals in this state that are in cities the size of Wenatchee to find out if they have clinics open on Sundays, or if their ER visits jump on Sundays.
Natalie Noyd said the hospital is certainly there to help anyone with an emergency need, even if it is the kind of thing that would normally be taken care of at a clinic. But we all know the ER is the expensive way to deal with an emergency, plus if our emergency isn’t serious or life threatening, we kind of hate to use the emergency room, even though they do triage patients according to need.
So, what do you think? Is this a story?
It’s rather frustrating, as a reporter, not to be able to get the age or gender, or even the hometown of the Okanogan County teenager associated with the national tomato scare. To me it’s the classic conflict between the public’s right to know, and a person’s right to privacy. (more…)
Here’s an interesting blip from ABC News: Flip-flops can be hazardous to your health! How can they tell us this, with the summer season about to hit (this is, if we ever get through all this rain, and no, I’m NOT complaining)? (more…)
As I wrote about in a previous blog, reporters and the public are increasingly seeing comparisons in the quality of health care offered at different hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices. One of the most-watched is the federal government’s comparison of hospitals, (more…)
We often report vehicle crashes or other incidents in which people are injured. Our threshold for when we report these accidents is usually whether the injured person spent the night at a hospital. But ever since Congress strengthened patient privacy rights (more…)
I’m glad to see a new study which concludes that extra treatment doesn’t always mean better care, particularly at the end of one’s life. Released Thursday, the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care study looked at 4 million patients (more…)
2 Comments