{"id":1436,"date":"2016-05-12T19:33:16","date_gmt":"2012-05-12T19:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edrugstore.md\/blog\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2012-05-12T19:33:16","modified_gmt":"2012-05-12T19:33:16","slug":"surgery-l0512","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edrugstore.com\/blog\/current-health-news\/surgery-l0512\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Patients Sent Home too Early after Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A new study shows doctors are sending some patients home too soon after surgery. The push to get patients out of the beds is all based on money. The quicker another patient can fill a bed, the more money the hospital can bring in. Dr. Bruce Golden is suggesting new guidelines to make a patients\u2019 recovery the top priority.<\/p>\n

Tough decisions<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Discharge decisions are made with bed-capacity constraints in mind,” says University of Maryland Professor Bruce Golden, the Smith School’s France-Merrick Chair in Management Science, who conducted the research with Ph.D. student David Anderson and other colleagues.<\/p>\n

“Patient traffic jams present hospitals and medical teams with major, practical concerns, but they can find better answers than sending the patient home at the earliest possible moment,” Golden adds.<\/p>\n

Golden explains the financial burden placed on hospitals. “The hospital has to maintain revenue levels to meet its financial obligations. Surgeons are working to save lives and earn a livelihood. It’s what they do,” he explains. “If the hospital says ‘sorry there are no beds available,’ there’s a lot of tension and pressure from both sides to keep things moving.”<\/p>\n

Finding solutions<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“Too often, the biggest problem is that hospitals just don’t plan ahead, and this is what gets them in trouble” Golden says. “There are logistical alternatives to sending a patient home too soon.”<\/p>\n

He suggests that surgeons use checklists before discharging the patient. “They know better than we do what questions should be asked – questions that would force the surgeon to think about whether they were discharging the patient for the right reason.”<\/p>\n

Also, he suggests that hospitals increase the flexibility of where patients go post-surgery. Allowing them to be moved to units with empty beds, for example, could also lessen premature discharges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study shows doctors are sending some patients home too soon after surgery. The push to get patients out of the beds is all based on money. The quicker another patient can fill a bed, the more money the hospital can bring in. Dr. Bruce Golden is suggesting new guidelines to make a patients\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_autoblog_aioseo_focus_keyphrase":"","_autoblog_aioseo_title":"","_autoblog_aioseo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-health-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t