Cardiac Care Honor?

On 1/15/08,our local paper, the Joliet Herald News, ran an article titled “Cardiac care earns honor for St. Joe’s”.

The honor was Blue Cross and Blue Shield naming St. Joe’s a Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care. This is a program that “…creates an unprecedented level of health care transparency for consumers and providers. Driven by quality, collaboration and affordability…” and “… centers which offer the best practices and standards of care…”

That doesn’t say too much about Blue Cross and Blue Shield if they’re giving an award to St. Joe’s

“…unprecedented level…” is right, if they’re talking about poor health care. “Driven by quality…” huh? Is that driven by providing poor quality?

It also talks about affordability. Really? If St. Joe’s is so affordable, why do they charge two and a half (2.5) times as much for a lipid test than Lab Corp across the street? They bought out Glenwood Imaging, and the first thing they did was raise the prices. They raised the price of a certain ultrasound by $700.00. And to this day nobody has been able to tell me why. Is that affordable?

Jeffrey Brickman, senior VP and regional CEO for the Provena Southwest Suburban Region, said “Our cardiac services have met stringent requirements set by Blue Cross Blue Shield, and our cardiac care has proven reliability in delivering quality cardiac care and better overall outcomes for cardiac patients.”

Brickman says that their “…cardiac care has proven reliability in delivering quality cardiac care and better overall outcomes for cardiac patients.” Quality care? What kind of quality? The kind of care you ger when you don’t change out the 9 volt batteries in a heart monitor when they’re supposed to be changed out every 24 hours?

The kind of quality care you get when the same heart monitors don’t have a memory? If medical staff isn’t there when you have a problem, they can’t go back and check the monitor to see what happened.

What kind of “quality care” can you expect from people that don’t know the difference between a hot flash and Super Ventricular Tachacardia?

Dr. Brian Foy, medical director of cardiac surgery at St. Joe’s, said “…we take quality very seriously.” He talks about “…our high quality of care…” and being “…proud to provide such a high standard of care for our patients.”

They take quality seriously? A “…high standard of care…”? You press the call button for a nurse, and 5 minutes later you have to stand in the hallway yelling help, only to have a CAN come meandering in and say “It’s only a hot flash.”, and that’s a high standard? The head nurse tells you “We can’t find your mother.”, and none of the staff knows where she is. What does that say about quality standards?

It turns out that “…the process used to select Blue Distinction Centers is based on clinical data supplied by hospitals.

Data supplied by the hospital? In other words, St. Joe’s sent them data saying St. Joe’s is doing a good job. No wonder they got an award. They could be standing around all day with their thumbs up their butts, and tell BC&BS that they’re doing a good job.

“’ Hey, BC&BS, I’m doing an excellent job. I more that qualify for your award!’ Pssst, hand me another cold one, heh heh heh.”

The article ended by Brickman saying “…we will continue to focus on providing the highest quality of care and best outcomes for out patients.”

Brickman says that they’ll “…continue to focus on providing the highest quality of care and best outcomes for out patients.” Continue? Don’t you have to start before you can continue? If they continue doing what they’re doing, well, God help us all.

Tags: hospital, Provena, St. Joe's, St. Joseph