http://www.hospitalsafetyscore.org/
My cousin posted this on Facebook. I think this is interesting that people are tracking and publicizing this, however, we must have CONTEXT!
We assume any hospital provides exceptional safety procedures. The “context” I will briefly discuss is MARKETING. For, hospitals must have customers, due to competition between hospitals. This would be considered the front line of health care, getting willing patients. Feeding into all hospitals are the PROVIDERS to hospitals, that is, major product-makers viewing the hospital(s) as DISTRIBUTION.
The context looks like this: Marketing helps direct – Patients – to Hospital – for Distribution – under sub-heading of Care – which falls under another sub-heading of Marketing TO the hospital of various pharmaceutical products, lab tests, napkins, etc.
If one is investigating the SAFETY of the hospital, then one must see the broader context, that a hospital is a box of chambers mostly where pharmaceutical products are distributed as profit-points. Often, surgeries are performed, which falls under another context, like how ordinary people came to require surgeries. For example, prior to 1999, the procedure called “colonoscopy” played a minor role in hospital services, while today it plays a $ignificant role. One might measure the colonoscopy as far as $AFETY, without asking why so many people are now receiving colonoscopies, without viewing the context of MARKETING and PROFIT of these $ervices to the general public.
What that means is that a service, like a colonoscopy, is assumed to provide a much-needed benefit and associated safety risks are measured without considering MARKETING and PROFIT as a motivation to provide such services, nor the statistics measuring the broader social pay-off, which should be less colon cancer mortality. That question would be: Does the population receiving the colonoscopy have reduced colon cancer diagnosis OR less digestive illnesses in general? The answer would come through the same department measuring MARKETING and PROFIT, so, this ‘FEEDBACK LOOP” would not generally be made public. If the colonoscopy provides minimal health benefit, the public would never be so informed. Not to mention one might ask about the side-effects of anesthesia to internal organs critical to the colon’s ongoing health, like the liver, processing anesthesia. Before one investigates the hospital, one should investigate all side-effects to the service provided, before walking through the door.
Because what they deem “prevention” is also deemed “profit” as a “service” as a “sale.”
In other words, we might research a hospital for its SAFETY to provide a colonoscopy without questioning whether the procedure was actually beneficial. I know of one case where a hospital employee, a doctor, questioned the high number of cesarean sections performed and before he could walk between the administrator’s office back to his office, he was met by security, fired, and escorted from the grounds. Why? The unseen influences of MARKETING and PROFIT.
A hospital is a distribution center designed to SUPER SIZE and MAXIMIZE sales. If they don’t, their competition will. You, in this case, are the sheep. The shepherd is your insurance company, which if you check, is a board of directors, comprised of MDs, and all their best friends work at hospitals or in government. The government agencies regulating the entire process are also run by those with an MD diploma, many of whom also have friends working at hospitals. Just lots of people, like you, with bills to pay.
I merely point out that, before one visits their local hospital, ask yourself what the f#ck you’re doing, going there in the first place. S.