Hospitals Dial 911

(NEWSER) - Everybody's thinking small on health care reform, writes David Goldhill in the Atlantic. Our system is so abysmal—the headline on his lengthy piece is "How American Health Care Killed My Father"—that it needs a radical restructuring, and that should start with insurance. Let's just stop buying it, or all but. Everyone should be required to have catastrophic insurance to cover bills above, say, $50,000. For everything else, the system should be pay-as-you-go. More»

Aussie docs save tourist's life with alcohol drip

(NEWSER) - Doctors have long recommended a glass of red wine for a healthy heart; but vodka apparently can also do a body good. After running out of medicinal alcohol, doctors in an Australian hospital set up a vodka drip as an antidote to save the life of a poisoned Italian tourist, reports the BBC. More»

...and some of its policy advice echoed ObamaCare

(NEWSER) - More consulting trouble for Newt. Since 2003, a Gingrich-founded think tank has pulled in at least $37 million from the health-care industry—and has called for an insurance mandate reminiscent of President Obama’s. Wellpoint, Blue Cross Blue Shield, AstraZeneca, and other members of the Center for Health Transformation paid as much as $200,000 in yearly dues; in exchange, they got “direct Newt interaction,” or at least so promised the think tank's promotional materials, the Washington Post reports. Gingrich ran the center until he left this year for the campaign trail. More»

Those sentimental images can become court evidence

(NEWSER) - Hospital managers across the country are confronting a tough decision, reports the New York Times : whether to allow families to videotape births. For one thing, those ever-more powerful cameras can deliver strikingly detailed pieces of evidence should things go wrong. In a 2007 case, for example, the University of Illinois Hospital was forced to pay $2.3 million after a video showed a nurse using excessive force. More»

Peter Orszag: No one wants to work Saturdays, but we need them to

(NEWSER) - If we're serious about raising the quality of health care while lowering its cost, doctors need to do two things: The first is suck it up and work weekends, writes Peter Orszag. There are plenty of compelling reasons: People who are hospitalized on Saturdays and Sundays don't fare so well, for one. A 2007 study found that for every 1,000 heart-attack sufferers admitted on the weekend, 9 to 10 more died versus weekday admissions. Our hospitals sit idle 25% of the time, meaning we're not using our expensive equipment and space fully. More»