I've
written before about the value of showing up in an ambulance for better care. And you'd hope that once you're in the hospital, you'd be in excellent care. Now, some recently released statistics indicate that
stroke patients already in the hospital receive worse care:
Stroke patients receive better care if they have their stroke outside the hospital than in the hospital. These worrisome findings come from a study based on data from the American Heart Association's Get With the Guidelines program.
"Maybe the emergencies we are least prepared for are the emergencies that happen in our very own backyard," Ethan Cumbler, MD, said here at Hospital Medicine 2013. ...
Defect-free care, defined as the proportion of patients who received all of the achievement-measure interventions for which they were eligible, was significantly worse for in-hospital stroke than for community-onset stroke... .
"The gap in defect-free care was larger than I expected," Dr. Cumbler told Medscape Medical News.
This also might show the value of being an advocate for someone in the hospital.
4 comments:
I am the advocate for my ever growing family. So when it was my turn an unable to speak after my stroke, there was no one. Be safe an have several.
You are so right! I've spent a lot of time in hospitals and other settings over the last few years (not as a patient) and the need is so clear.
A friend of mine sent me a link to this blog posting as my husband suffered a horrible stroke while in ICU recovering from surgery. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to advocate as it was night and I had left him when he was fine and "in good hands" (I thought) and went home to bed and it wasn't until I showed up at 9:00 a.m. and screamed that "something is wrong!" that anyone did anything about it.
My husband is severely disabled from this event. Much more than if... well... if it had been caught sooner.
This study just says what I already know. Much better to have a stroke at home, with those you love, than in a hospital with those who just don't care....
I hate hospitals now. Don't trust health care providers one bit.
Thanks for the post. Wish this study had been done a long time ago and wish hospital standards, teaching/training will be improved. Even if too late for us.
Nice blog, by the way! Take care.
Hi, Diane. I am so sorry about what happened. You are right that both your own experience and this study show a need for better care.
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