Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Minor Medical Incidents Can Send Assisted Living Facility Residents To The Hospital Because There's No Doctor On Site. That Could Be Changing.
The patient moved into a large assisted living facility in Raleigh, N.C., in 2003. She was younger than most residents, just 73, but her daughter thought it a safer option than remaining in her own home. The woman had been falling so frequently that 鈥渟he was ending up in the emergency room almost every month,鈥 said Dr. Shohreh Taavoni, the internist who became her primary care physician. 鈥淪he didn鈥檛 know why she was falling. She didn鈥檛 feel dizzy 鈥 she鈥檇 just find herself on the floor.鈥 At least in a facility, her daughter told Dr. Taavoni, people would be around to help. (Span, 3/29)
In other health care personnel news 鈥
Match Day at the University of Mississippi Medical Center is always a big deal. It鈥檚 the day medical students in their final year learn where they will be doing their residencies for the next three to five years. The nationwide system works a little like rushing for a college sorority or fraternity. Medical institutions rank their preference of medical students, and the students do the same. An algorithm determines 鈥渁 match,鈥 which the students are contractually obligated to abide by. (Krueger, 3/30)
At Morgan Stanley Children鈥檚 Hospital in New York City, the 58 tiny beds for sick newborns are almost always filled. But nurses who work there say there are often too few of them to provide all of the care the babies, and their worried families, need. One of those neonatal intensive care nurses, Shanna Murphy, says she has not forgotten the new mother who got upset when she felt her crying infant was being ignored. Ms. Murphy, 28, said she wanted to soothe the baby, but she had her hands full with another patient whose condition had become unstable and required near-constant monitoring. (McGeehan, 3/30)