Horse Sh*t

Nekio

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.
 
Summary for Soj: Wah wah, someone said my hospital sucks, but it really doesn't!





Seriously though Nekio, that sucks, dude. :(
 
It never really hits people just how HORRIBLY we are informed by the media until they are involved in the story themselves.

If it makes you feel better, its always like that Nek. I just dont listen to the news anymore. Half of it is horse-poop.
 
A response to the article by the health commissioner of NY state:

The New York State Health Department, working in partnership with the Joint Commission, the federal government, and hospitals themselves, conducts one of the strongest hospital quality oversight programs in the nation. Unfortunately, New York Times writer Alex Berenson erroneously links the Berger Commission recommendations for a single unified governance structure for SUNY Upstate University and Crouse hospitals in Syracuse with quality issues (Weak Patchwork of Regulation Lets Bad Hospitals Stay Open, Dec. 8).

In fact, the Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century (Berger Commission) report raised no issues relating to quality at either SUNY Upstate or Crouse. Rather, its recommendation for unified governance was based on the need to eliminate excess bed capacity and reduce duplication of services at the two hospitals.

The Berger Commission said SUNY hospitals' "academic mission to train physicians and their mission to serve patients regardless of ability to pay must be preserved." Berger went on to state, "Neither institution can be eliminated completely; portions of both are required to meet the community's health needs and to sustain SUNY Upstate's medical education role."

Contrary to the New York Times story, SUNY Upstate and Crouse ARE moving forward to unify and downsize in accordance with the Berger Commission. The two hospitals contracted to submit to a unified governance authority under an independently led, 13-member Affiliation Council with responsibility for strategic planning and consolidation of services and operations. As recommended by the Berger Commission, the State Health Department is not approving requests for major equipment, building or services at the two hospitals unless these requests are recommended by the Affiliation Council.

Bed counts are being reduced by joint agreement, although the State Health Department found that the specific targets established by Berger had become outdated and would be unsustainable.

University Hospital takes the most difficult cases without complaint, addresses quality of care concerns forthrightly, and is a leader in recruiting, training and deploying physicians to meet the challenges of rural medicine.

We must continually strive to prevent the kind of patient experiences and outcomes described in Berenson's article. In 2007 the department conducted 2,634 hospital investigations and implemented enforcement actions that included $347,000 in fines as well as follow-up measures to increase patient safety. During 2007 the New York State Board for Professional Medical Conduct took 303 final actions, 35 percent of which resulted in loss of a physician's license.

We have also implemented significant quality initiatives in collaboration with hospitals. New York's hospital incident reporting system is a national model in identifying and addressing quality problems. Our SPARCS hospital discharge database is one of the most extensive and widely used in the nation to examine quality. Our reports on cardiac surgery outcomes are the gold standard. We provide hospital and physician profiles on our website, a new hospital acquired infection reporting system implemented last year will provide the nation's best report cards on hospital infections, and beginning this year New York's Medicaid program will no longer pay for serious medical errors that should never occur.

The State Health Department, with excellent cooperation from the hospital sector, will continue to use these methods to assure the highest levels of quality and safety and take vigorous disciplinary and regulatory actions when warranted. We are also highly confident that the joining of University and Crouse under the single governance structure recommended by the Berger report will yield important financial, health care services, and quality enhancement for the Central New York Region.

He basically says the same thing as me, only in a much nicer tone.

tl;dr, etc
 
Shrike said:
It never really hits people just how HORRIBLY we are informed by the media until they are involved in the story themselves.
Click to expand...

Quoted for truth... all news media know where their checks come from, and they all have their own agendas and political slants. NYT is (in?)famous for this too of course.

-benny
 
Just remember... "In day to day commerce, the news media is not so much interested in the business of communicating the news as in delivering audiences to advertisers. People are the merchandise, not the news. The news is merely the bait."

Therefore, in order to deliver the most audiences, they have to communicate any story that will bring in the largest audience regardless of if it is totally "legitimate". And of course, there arent THAT many people want to read about only real facts and objective news (at least in the minds of news CEOs). Fear and insecurity glues people to their papers and televisions. I guess you could say that fear and misconceived emotions are the industries that drive the media.

although, I think everyone is starting to understand this and are rejecting it, as a lot of news companies (including the NYT) are having to downsize.
 
Ashmus said:
Just remember... "In day to day commerce, the news media is not so much interested in the business of communicating the news as in delivering audiences to advertisers. People are the merchandise, not the news. The news is merely the bait."

Therefore, in order to deliver the most audiences, they have to communicate any story that will bring in the largest audience regardless of if it is totally "legitimate". And of course, there arent THAT many people want to read about only real facts and objective news (at least in the minds of news CEOs). Fear and insecurity glues people to their papers and televisions. I guess you could say that fear and misconceived emotions are the industries that drive the media.

although, I think everyone is starting to understand this and are rejecting it, as a lot of news companies (including the NYT) are having to downsize.
Click to expand...
So very true. It's the same with TV programming. TV stations' customers are not the viewing public, and TV stations' products are not TV programs. The public is the product, and we're sold to advertisers in chunks set apart by gender, age range, and affluence. :p The TV programs are bait to catch the products so we can be parceled out. I think news tried to hold out longer against the corrupting influence than other stuff, but they've bent under the pressure (if not broken).

Every journalism major I've known has left the industry after their first job/internship. :p
 
Well, after some pressure from our university president and the health commissioner of NY (and probably the team of SUNY lawyers), the New York Times has admitted that the article portrayed the situation erroneously and has agreed to a correction. We're still pushing for retraction, but it's a start.

University Hospital receives response from New York Times on retraction


Upstate Medical University President David R. Smith, M.D., received a response from the New York Times this afternoon after asking for a retraction and correction of portions of the story that was published in the Dec. 8 edition regarding the Berger Commission and hospital quality.

The Times agreed that: “… the headline and introductory language on the chart ‘Falling Short in Syracuse’ warrant a correction. They did not accurately reflect the fact that the data in the chart included information showing University Hospital to be at the national average by one measure and above the state average by another. And so we intend to run a correction in the newspaper and to adjust the chart accordingly on our Web site."

However, the response stated that a retraction of the story was not warranted.

"We are pleased that this issue received the attention of the Times, but feel the paper did not go far enough in reviewing this matter," said Dr. Smith. “We still have significant concerns about the selective use of data, the use of old data from several unrelated sources, and the mistaken premise that the Berger Commission’s recommendation in Syracuse was based on quality issues.”

In his statement released yesterday, state Health Commissioner Richard Daines, M.D., said the Berger Commission “report raised no issues relating to quality” at University Hospital in making its recommendation in 2006. The commissioner additionally acknowledged the unique mission and role of Upstate Medical University and University Hospital as a safety net provider and as a regional asset.

"We look forward to continuing the conversation with the New York Times and the many community members we are privileged to serve,” Smith said.
 
Said correction will be displayed in tiny print on page 32, underneath a huge, garishly colored ad for an athlete's foot cure. :p
 
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