Five plus years after page author added this link to his home page,The Chicago Tribune's (7/21/2002) three (3) part Expose' ON " INVESTIGATION: UNHEALTHY HOSPITALS "   says they are still killing us and our children with Dirty Hands and Unsafe Sanitation.

With the Release ( Sale ) Of "Non-Water" Hand Cleaners, it Is Now Possible For Doctors,Nurses and others who administer to patients, to keep their Hands Clean without experiencing the painfull "Chapped Hands" that resulted when soap was the only media for keeping hands clean

According to the CDC & Prevention Using the chemical Hand Washer for ten (10) to fifteen (15) seconds is more effective than using soap and water...Automatic Hand Sanitizers...that are being sold to Dentists...was exhibited at the NRA Show...Cleans, Sanitizes with a "Wave " of the hand thru the machine.

The September 9, 2002 issue of Chicago Tribune contains article on  Hospital Drug Errors,  which relates to the " Institute Of Medicine's " report that Medical Errors contribute to more than one million (1,000,000 ) Injuries and Ninety Eight thousand ( 98,000 ) deaths annually !!!.

Health care workers trained for the new study were sent on site and recorded errors during 81 days of observation.Potentially harmful errors included overdoses and instances when nurses failed to give patients prescribed medication..(For verification of summery on Hospital Drug Errors, visit the Chicago Tribune's Archives )...Type "Hospital Drug Errors" in search box. You have to pay for copy. It's worth the money.

In 1999, the health care industry was shaken up with the release of the report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Washington, D.C., that found as many as 98,000 patients die every year because of medical errors.
As hospitals are working to assure the public the industry is addressing the problem adequately,  a new report could make that job much more difficult.

HealthGrades, Lakewood, Colo., a health care quality information company, found that from 2000 to 2002,  the number of deaths due to potentially preventable, hospital medical errors averaged about 195,000 per year, nearly twice the estimate of the IOM study.

The new report, Patient Safety in American Hospitals, took a more comprehensive look at patient records and examined three years of Medicare data in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
By comparison, the IOM study, To Err is Human, gathered its conclusions by extrapolated national findings based on data from three states.

Not only does the HealthGrades study conclude the IOM figures may have under estimated the nationwide problem, but the authors say little evidence exists that patient safety has improved in the last five years.

In the study, HealthGrades examined 16 of the 20 patient safety indicators as defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, Md.
It found that failure to rescue and death in low risk hospital admissions accounted for 75 percent of mortalities that could be attributed to patient safety incidents.
The IOM study didn't evaluate these two categories of patients.
Samantha Collier, M.D., HealthGrades' vice president" of medical affairs says the 195,000 deaths are equivalent to having passengers on 390 jumbo airplanes die every year. She notes they're dying of errors that likely are preventable.
On the financial side, the sixteen (16) patient safety incidents examined in the study accounted for $8.54 billion in excess inpatient costs during the three years studied, about $2.85 billion annually.
That figure represented nearly 3 percent of the entire: $102 billion allocated for Medicare hospital inpatient care for 2002.

The complete report  can be downloaded. Click to access URL

*Article Scanned and copied from September 2004 issue of matmanmag.com...Hignlights added by page author

State-by-State Guide to Health Care Provider Performance By Christopher J. Gearon...December 2006  aarp.org/bulletin/yourhealth/statebystate_guide_healthcare_provider_performance.html

Interactive Hospital Billing Tips

Tips to Spot Common "Over Charges" On Hospital Bills

Following chart is from July 18, 2005 issue of AARP Magazine

43 Description:44 HcPCS/Rates

Admission:  Excessive Charges for routine admission process.$157.00

Room & Board-Private:  Private room charge for a patient who had a semi-
private room. Or for a patient placed in a private room, only because
semi -private was not available.$368.00

Aspirin 80 mg, chewable -Charges for medication that was not
administered or declined by patient$5.00

Lab Hematology; -a number of specific tests "Grouped " under a broad
billing category. Each test shold be"itemized" on the bill.$368.20

Lab Hematology: -Double Billing !!!$368.20

Chest X-Rays:...Two Views: Charges for services that a physician
did not order or were not administered.$49.40

Chest X-Rays:...Two Views:Charges for services that were performed a
"second time" because they "were not" performed correctly the first (*)time>$49.40

Or Suture Clip:  Charges for an item "covered elsewhere" in the bill...
In this case the Suture was covered under surgical supplies. $110.00