Website data for some Ga. hospitals are flat wrong

Website data for some Ga. hospitals are flat wrong

One thousand, one hundred and fifteen minutes. That’s 18.5 hours. It’s not much time in the grand scheme of things. But it’s a very long time for a person who arrives in an ER to have to wait before being sent home. The 1,115-minute figure is reported on a public federal website as the average…

Ga. hospitals in middle of pack on quality bonuses

Ga. hospitals in middle of pack on quality bonuses

Slightly more than half of Georgia hospitals are receiving individual bonuses from Medicare for the quality of their services, a new analysis has found. Medicare last month announced bonuses and penalties for nearly 3,000 U.S. hospitals as it links almost $1 billion in payments to the quality of care given to patients. The state’s average…

Meetings show health care not stuck in neutral

Meetings show health care not stuck in neutral

Two Atlanta gatherings Monday showed that health care isn’t waiting around for whatever happens to the 2010 reform law. Gov. Nathan Deal’s committee on health exchanges met at the state Capitol for introductions and background on their task. The federal law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, requires states to have health exchanges running in…

Safety effort seeking to reduce hospital errors

Safety effort seeking to reduce hospital errors

Patient safety has been a top-shelf theme in health care for years. But alarming data continue to demonstrate potential dangers of a health care experience. The safety numbers include: A study published in the journal Health Affairs in April found that on average, one in three patients admitted to a hospital suffers a medical error…