Monday, December 20, 2010

ER-hopping drives up costs

I'm getting tired of going to Regional. Let's try St. Joe's tonight!


For many patients hospitals are like restaurants.


A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that such hospital-hopping is common and it drives up costs. And there's reason to believe it's unsafe. You can take for granted that medication errors will increase, and in this study patients who went to multiple ERs were more likely to be hospitalized overnight.


Occasionally a trip to a different hospital is unavoidable but in general, if you want to do your part for the medical commons and make your hospital visit a safer experience don't hospital-hop!


Via Grunt Doc.

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