Nekio
{Gilfinder}
Yay my very own rant thread! So today's story starts with a newspaper article in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/business/08hospital.html?ref=business
This article is about how errors can be overlooked in the medical setting, and paints a horrible scene about a hospital that botched an operation, and how that hospital is a bad hospital and should be shut down. That hospital happens to be the hospital where I go to school.
The problem is, the article is completely full of shit, entirely biased, and very misleading. One of the most egregious, well... lies... is that the Berger Commission was somehow recommending to downsize our hospital based on poor patient outcomes. First of all, the data the author used to compare our patient outcomes to other hospitals around the country was 20 years old. Secondly, the data he reports in the article is only 3 of 20+ criteria looked at: out of the 20+ variables he ignored, our hospital ranked in the top bracket in over 15 of them. Thirdly, the Berger Commission never even LOOKED at patient outcomes... the entire point of the commission was to analyze resources and economic factors, and how to best utilize the limited medical staff in the area to serve one of the largest patient populations in the Northeast.
All of this stuff may not make sense to anyone, so I'll summarize by saying how ludicrous it is looking at the lack of responsibility the press can get away with nowadays. The concept of objective journalism no longer exists, and sensationalism equals money, which is all the media cares about. It makes me sick.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/business/08hospital.html?ref=business
This article is about how errors can be overlooked in the medical setting, and paints a horrible scene about a hospital that botched an operation, and how that hospital is a bad hospital and should be shut down. That hospital happens to be the hospital where I go to school.
The problem is, the article is completely full of shit, entirely biased, and very misleading. One of the most egregious, well... lies... is that the Berger Commission was somehow recommending to downsize our hospital based on poor patient outcomes. First of all, the data the author used to compare our patient outcomes to other hospitals around the country was 20 years old. Secondly, the data he reports in the article is only 3 of 20+ criteria looked at: out of the 20+ variables he ignored, our hospital ranked in the top bracket in over 15 of them. Thirdly, the Berger Commission never even LOOKED at patient outcomes... the entire point of the commission was to analyze resources and economic factors, and how to best utilize the limited medical staff in the area to serve one of the largest patient populations in the Northeast.
All of this stuff may not make sense to anyone, so I'll summarize by saying how ludicrous it is looking at the lack of responsibility the press can get away with nowadays. The concept of objective journalism no longer exists, and sensationalism equals money, which is all the media cares about. It makes me sick.