Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1161749
56 CMO / CARE DELIVERY Philadelphia hospital closure leaves 570 medical residents scrambling By Ayla Ellison H ahnemann University Hospital in Phil- adelphia is closing and its 570 physi- cians-in-training need to find new place- ments, according to e Philadelphia Tribune. American Academic Heath System announced plans in late June to close Hahnemann Univer- sity Hospital due to unsustainable financial losses. Hahnemann is the primary teaching hospital for Drexel University's College of Medicine, and news that the hospital will close by Sept. 6 has upended the careers of the med- ical residents training at the 495-bed hospital. Although all of the physicians-in-training faced the undoubtedly stressful process of finding a new placement, the situation was more serious for the roughly 55 medical resi- dents with J-1 cultural exchange visas. ose medical residents would have had to leave the U.S. if they could not find new placements with- in 30 days of losing their jobs, according to e Philadelphia Tribune. e Educational Com- mission for Foreign Medical Graduates helped all residents with J-1 visas secure placement as of Aug. 19, according to KYW Newsradio. Local teaching hospitals are showing support for physicians-in-training affected by the hos- pital closure. Einstein Medical Center in Phil- adelphia said it will work with regulatory and oversight bodies to accommodate medical res- idents, while Jefferson Health in Philadelphia and Cooper Health in Camden, N.J., have set up websites where affected residents can apply, according to e Philadelphia Tribune. On July 10, Hahnemann University Hospi- tal and Reading, Pa.-based Tower Health an- nounced they have signed a letter of intent to transfer most of the residency and fellowship programs affected by the hospital closure to Tower Health. Under the proposed agreement, which was submitted to the bankruptcy court for approval, physicians-in-training would be given the opportunity to transfer to one of Tow- er Health's six hospitals, according to the Phila- delphia Business Journal. n Connecticut hospital cited after patient swallows batteries By Mackenzie Bean C MS cited Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown for failing to properly monitor a psychiatric patient at risk of self-harm, according to the Hartford Courant. The patient was taken to Middlesex Hospital, also in Middletown, after swallowing two batteries from a pair of headphones provided by a nurse May 8. He required emergency surgery and a colonoscopy to remove the batteries. The patient had been admitted to Middlesex Hospital five other times since February for other acts of self-harm, undergoing a total of six surgeries. This prompt- ed the Middlesex surgeon who operated on him to file a complaint with the state public health department. Regulators visited the state-run hospital June 11 and found staff members failed to "adequately supervise" patients or "main- tain continuous observations," according to a CMS inspection report emailed to Becker's. CMS placed the hospital on "imme- diate jeopardy" June 11. That status was lifted June 16. "The department takes patient care and safety very seri- ously," the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, which oversees the hospital, told Becker's. "In light of a recent finding by [CMS] related to a CMS survey, DMHAS has taken immediate actions to modify necessary treatment to ensure appropriate care is provided to pa- tients at the agency's hospital." The patient involved in the complaint has since been transferred to a more secure treatment setting. Hospital leaders also retrained employees and increased physician rounding, among other actions, according to the Hartford Courant. n Leapfrog: Most hospitals don't meet surgical volume standards for safety By Mackenzie Bean M ost hospitals do not meet The Leapfrog Group's surgical volume standards, which outline the min- imum number of surgeries a hospital must report annually to limit the risk of patient harm, according to the group's 2019 Inpatient Surgery Report. The report is based on data submitted by more than 2,000 hospitals for Leapfrog's 2018 hospital survey. Leapfrog as- sessed hospitals' compliance to its surgical volume stan- dards for the following high-risk procedures: • Bariatric surgery for weight loss • Carotid endarterectomy • Esophageal resection for cancer • Lung resection for cancer • Mitral valve repair and replacement • Open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair • Pancreatic resection for cancer • Rectal cancer surgery Leapfrog found hospitals were most likely to meet full volume standards for bariatric surgery. However, compliance was still low at 38 percent. Hospitals had the lowest compliance for open abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs at 2.5 percent. Urban hospitals also outperformed rural hospitals in meet- ing surgical volume standards for all eight procedures. n