And such differences were constant even after researchers took into account how much pain the patients were having, said lead study author Dr. Timothy Platts-Mills, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Of those older patients reporting severe pain, 67 percent received pain medication, compared to 79 percent of middle aged patients with severe pain.

“We’re not exactly sure why this happens,” said Platts-Mills in a news release. “It may be because physicians are more concerned about potential side effects in this population.

Emergency departments (EDs) are a significant source of acute care for older adults, with more than 20 million emergency department visits each year by patients 65 and older. Nearly half of these medical visits are for the treatment and evaluation of pain.

Platts-Mills and colleagues conducted a secondary analysis of data collected from U.S. emergency departments between 2003 and 2009 in order to test the hypothesis that older adults who come to the ED with a primary complaint of pain are less likely to receive pain medication than younger patients.

Results indicate 49 percent of patients 75 and older received an analgesic like ibuprofen, morphine or oxycodone, compared to 68.3 percent of patients  who were middle-aged patients. Also, 34.8 percent of the elderly patients received an opioid like oxycodone or  morphine compared to 49.3 percent of the middle-aged patients.

These differences remained even after the results were adjusted for race/ethnicity, sex, pain severity and other factors. Elderly patients were 19.6 percent less likely to receive an analgesic and 14.6 percent less likely to receive an opioid than middle-aged patients.

Platt-Mills said the gap in pain management for older patients shows the need for medical professionals to understand the best ways to manage pain and recognize the barriers to doing this.

“All patients, regardless of age, deserve to have relief from pain, especially when it is severe,” Platt-Mills said in a news release. “Our group is actively investigating the side effects of commonly used pain medication and the impact of pain on functional outcomes after injury in older adults.

”

The study’s authors say more research is needed to understand the long-term impact of acute pain management for older patients in the emergency department, to find new methods to minimize adverse effects from pain medications, and to explore the role of non-pharmacologic pain management for the elderly.

For more on medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach nursing home injury attorney.

Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that causes infection and leads to diarrhea. It is most often related to antibiotic use during medical treatment.  A major cause of illness and increasing health care costs among patients in hospitals, C. difficile infections have increased dramatically in recent years. There are approximately 500,000 cases in the United States annually and approximately 15,000 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Almost 25 percent of patients will have a recurrence of C. difficile infection, and a proportion will be resistant to antibiotics. C. difficile is especially dangerous for patients who have weakened immune systems such as the elderly and those who suffer with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Therapies for this difficult-to-treat subpopulation include antibiotics, probiotics, toxin-binding medications, active vaccination, intravenous immunoglobon, and fecal microbiota transplant, for which the evidence has been mounting as an effective rescue for recurrent and resistant cases of C. difficile associated diarrhea.

The first study included 77 patients from New York, Rhode Island, Okalahoma, California and Washington who previously had a colonoscopic fecal microbiota transplant at least three months ago for recurrent C. difficile infection.

Researchers found that FMT had a 91 percent success rate with 70 out of 77 patients who were on average elderly, debilitated and had undergone multiple failed treatments, including antibiotic and probiotic therapies.

Additionally, in six of the remaining seven patients, a single two-week course of vancomycin or a two-week vancomycin course plus one further FMT resulted in a cure in 98 percent of the patients.

Many of the patients who were followed in this study had been ill for quite a long time,  said Dr. Mark Mellow, of INTERGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma. “Once they underwent the fecal microbiota transplant, their response to the treatment was quick and their symptoms improved on average in about six days.”

These patients had been ill on average for 11 months, but after the FMT procedure patients continued to improve, according to Dr. Mellow and his fellow investigators. And without additional antibiotic treatment, the patients did not have a recurrence of C. difficile infection during follow-up which averaged 17 months.

Results from a meta-analysis by researchers at the University of Toledo Medical Center also provided further evidence of the effectiveness of fecal microbiota transplantation.

Researchers reviewed the cases of 148 patients who had received fecal transplants for C. difficile infection.  Follow-up ranged from 10 days to 62 months after the transplant, with an average follow-up of 1 year.

The fecal transplant procedure had an overall success rate of 85.4 percent, according to researchers, who also concluded that the procedure was a safe and effective treatment option for C. difficile infection.

“While the concept of fecal transplantation may sound unpleasant to some, patient acceptance of this treatment is growing, especially when they have been suffering for months with recurrent C. difficile,” said Dr. Mellow.  “When we asked patients in our study about their choice of treatment if their infection recurred, 53 percent said fecal transplant would be their first choice for treatment.”

With the fecal transplantation’s growing success rate for C.Difficile, researchers have started to explore the effectiveness of this procedure for other serious conditions, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease.  In this separate study, researchers reported successful treatment of severe mixed Inflammatory Bowel Disease, using recurrent fecal microbiota
transplants in three patient cases.

For more on medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach nursing home injury attorney.

That is what surgeons have concluded after conducting the first study of long-term outcomes from a series of clinical trials of patients 60 and over who were treated with the new form of stem cell transplantation. This kinder and gentler form of donor cell stem cell transplantation was developed at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

“Age is no longer a barrier to allogeneic transplant,” said Dr. Mohamed Sorror, an assistant member of the Hutchinson Center’s Clinical Research Division and study  author.

The study involved 372 patients ages 60 to 75 who were enrolled in prospective clinical trials between 1998 and 2008 at 18 collaborating U.S. and European cancer centers known as the “Seattle Consortium.

Researchers found that the five-year rates of overall and disease-progression-free survival among mini-transplant patients were 35 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

Patients in three age groups – 60 to 64, 65 to 69 and 70 to 75 – had comparable survival rates, which showed  that age does play a role in how patients tolerate the mini-transplant procedure.

The two factors that affected survival among older patients were a higher degree of  cancer aggressiveness and  increased medical problems unrelated to cancer. Those patients not impacted by those two factors had a five-year survival rate of 69 percent, compared to 23 percent, regardless of age.

While a long-term survival rate of only a third of these older patients may seem low, researchers say these patients all would have died of their diseases within a matter of months without a transplant.

“The majority of patients were referred for a transplant after they had exhausted all forms of conventional therapy,” said Sorror, who works in the research group led by Dr. Rainer Storb, who developed the mini-transplant.

The study’s authors say these results are very encouraging considering the poor outcomes with non-transplantation treatments, especially for patients with fludarabine-refractory CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia), high-risk AML (acute myeloid leukemia),  or progressive lymphoma.

The mini-transplant, known in medical circles as nonmyeloablative transplantation, was developed by researchers at the Hutchinson Center for patients who are older and medically sicker who otherwise could not tolerate the standard, more-toxic, high-dose regimens used to prepare patients for transplantation.

Traditional transplants use high doses of total-body irradiation and potent chemotherapy to destroy leukemic cells, and are typically not performed on those over 60. The intense treatment destroys the blood and immune system and is fatal unless the patient is rescued by transplantation of donor bone marrow or stem cells isolated from peripheral blood.

The mini-transplant depends on the ability of donor immune cells to target and destroy the cancer – without high-dose chemotherapy and radiation. Instead, low-dose radiation and chemotherapy suppress the immune system rather than destroy it. This assists the body in accepting the donor stem cells, which then attack the cancer cells – called the graft-vs.-leukemia effect – and rebuild the body’s immune system.

The study also examined rates of relapse, the toxicity of treatment to internal organs, hospitalization, acute and chronic graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) which is the most common side effect of transplantation.

Five years after the transplants, almost 66 percent of patients who were affected by chronic GVHD had complete resolution of their symptoms and were able to discontinue immunosuppressive medications after a median time of  two and half years from the initial diagnosis. And 50 percent of the patients never required hospitalization after transplant.

Noting that 20 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older by the year 2030, researchers say an increase of up to 77 percent in the number of newly diagnosed blood cancers among this population are expected to occur in the next two decades.

Researchers say they plan to further study the reasons behind the low referral rate of older patients to transplant  and how mini-transplant outcomes compare to those of conventional therapies.

For more on medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach medical malpractice attorney.

The researchers found that this common outpatient procedure, used to diagnose prostate cancer, was associated with a 6.9 percent rate of hospitalization within 30 days of biopsy compared to a 2.9 percent hospitalization rate among a control group of men who did not have a prostate biopsy.

More than 1 million prostate biopsy procedures are performed each year in the United States to diagnose and monitor prostate cancer, which is the second most common cause of cancer death among men.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University say that prostate biopsies should only be performed with strict adherence to medical guidelines, and after all potential risks and benefits have been reviewed with patients. They emphasize that this new data should serve as a reminder to physicians to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of biopsy for individual patients and take all precautions to prevent infections and other complications.

The Johns Hopkins team’s findings are the result of the largest analysis ever performed of Medicare records of American men age 65 and older who underwent prostate biopsies in the last two decades.

They found that having a prostate biopsy makes patients more than twice as likely to need hospitalization after the procedure. Those hospitalized had a range of complications, such as bleeding and infection, as well as flare-ups of underlying medical conditions, such as heart failure or breathing disorders.

Overall, mortality rates in men undergoing prostate biopsies did not increase. However, men hospitalized with biopsy-related infections had a 12-fold higher risk of death compared to men who did not have a biopsy.

“Prostate biopsy is an essential procedure for detecting prostate cancers,” says Dr. Edward Schaeffer, a Johns Hopkins urologist and oncologist and the study’s senior investigator. “Coupled with appropriate screening, prostate biopsies save lives. However, it is important for men to be aware of the possible risks of prostate biopsies, which are often described as simple outpatient procedures.”

In their study, the researchers examined the frequency of biopsy related complications that required hospitalization in more than 17,400 men age 65 and older from 1991 to 2007. They compared these rates to a cohort of 134,977 men during the same time period with similar characteristics who did not undergo a prostate biopsy. The researchers only looked at hospital admissions, not men whose complications were treated in an emergency department or outpatient setting.

While the rate of hospitalization following prostate biopsy has declined steadily since 1991, the researchers found that the rate of hospitalization during the time period was still two-fold higher among the men who had a biopsy (6.9 percent compared to 2.9 percent).

There was also a steady rise in the rate of serious infection-related complications. At the onset of the study in 1991, fewer than 0.5 percent of men were admitted to the hospital because of an infection diagnosed following a prostate biopsy. This rate remained stable until 2000, when rates of infection-related complications began to increase to more than 1.2 percent in 2007.

“Antibiotics are routinely given to men at the time of biopsy, and the fact that infections serious enough to cause hospital admissions have been on the rise makes us think that these types of complications are occurring because of a steady increase in antimicrobial resistance rates in America,” said Schaeffer, who is also an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“Based on these findings, we believe that more needs to be done to reduce potential complications,” said co-author H. Ballentine Carter, M.D., professor of urology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “It is important for urologists to determine if a biopsy is appropriate for an individual patient and also if the patient is at increased risk for a biopsy- related complication.”

For more on medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach medical malpractice attorney.

These burdensome transitions include moving to a different facility in the last three days of life or repeat hospitalizations for expected complications of dementia in the last 90 days of life.

“Such patterns of transitions are burdensome, particularly since the overwhelming majority of family members state the main goal of care is comfort,” said study co-author Joan Teno, professor of health policy and practice at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a palliative care physician, in a news release.  “These transitions reflect the inefficiency of our health care system. Similar outcomes could be achieved by keeping these patients in the nursing home setting.”

An important reason for the prevalence of burdensome transitions might be embedded in the way Medicare pays nursing homes, said Brown health economist and lead author Pedro Gozalo.

Nursing homes can earn higher payments for patients who have been transferred to a hospital for three days and they may qualify for skilled nursing services paid by Medicare rather than Medicaid upon their return. The current incentives under Medicare and Medicaid encourage nursing homes to send patients to the hospital, he said.

What makes the transitions burdensome, especially for patients with cognitive impairment, Teno said, is that they are often unnecessary, raise the risk of medical errors, and interrupt continuity of care for patients who can experience significant stress and disorientation when they are suddenly removed from familiar surroundings and people. When the patients become upset, their families experience more stress.

Because these financial incentives, market conditions, and the culture of end-of-life care vary by state, so do the rates of burdensome transitions.

The authors, who also include researchers from Harvard University and Dartmouth College, found that the overall percentage of patients experiencing at least one burdensome transition was 19 percent. State-level rates varied from 2.1 percent in Alaska to 37.5 percent in Louisiana. Blacks and Hispanics were also more likely than whites to experience burdensome transitions, the authors found.

“These burdensome transitions are not only bad for the patient, they also drain the federal treasury, hastening the day when the Medicare trust fund runs out of money,” said economist Jonathan Skinner from Dartmouth College, a co-author on the study.

To reach these conclusions, the team analyzed federal databases of nursing home and Medicare records accumulated between 2000 and 2007. In all, they found 474,829 patients who were older than 66, had advanced cognitive impairment, and lived in a nursing home 120 days before their death.

Of these, 90,228 residents experienced at least one burdensome transition, defined as either a transfer in the last three days of life, returning to a different nursing home than the one they lived in before they went to the hospital, or multiple hospitalizations in the last 90 days of life.

Often these hospitalizations occur even though the condition prompting the hospitalization — pneumonia, urinary tract infection, or dehydration — could easily be treated in a properly equipped and staffed nursing home.

These variations were particularly wide across different geographic areas. In McAllen, Texas, 24.1 percent of patients had multiple hospitalizations for urinary tract infections, pneumonia or dehydration, compared to only 0.7 percent of patients in Grand Junction, Colo.

The regional rate of burdensome transitions also correlates with other indicators of poor end-of-life care, Gozalo noted. Compared to patients living in the health care markets with the lowest rates of burdensome transitions, those who lived in the regions with the highest rates were three times more likely to have a feeding tube inserted, more than twice as likely to be in the intensive care unit in the last 30 days of life, and more than twice as likely to have developed an advanced pressure ulcer.

Ultimately, Teno said, all of these problems are signs of care gone awry. The best care for a patient with advanced cognitive impairment near the end of life is often to maximize comfort. The burdens of hospitalization usually outweigh the benefits.

“Our research calls for efforts to reform health care payment that create incentives to improve advance care planning and care coordination,” Gozalo said. “Current reform efforts like accountable care organizations that bundle both the hospital and post-acute care payments could begin to address some of these perverse incentives. We need financial incentives to make sure that people are getting the right care in the right place at the right time.”

For more on end-of-life care, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach nursing  home injury attorney.

In the United States, hip fractures are the most common broken bone that requires hospitalization. In 2006, there were 316,000 hospital admissions for hip fractures in people age 65 and older–an increase of 7 percent from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 90 percent of hip fractures are caused by falling, most often by falling sideways onto the hip

THE BREAK

A broken hip is a break in the thigh bone (called the “femur”) near the hip joint. In older adults, a broken hip can occur from falling or from daily use if the femur is weak. The femur is one of the strongest bones in your body, but it may weaken with age. Even a minor injury may cause the bone to break.

People who have a bone-weakening condition called “osteoporosis” are more likely to break a hip.

A broken hip is a serious injury that is very painful and can keep you from walking. People with broken hips may be at risk for other problems, such as pneumonia, blood clots, and muscle weakness. Some problems can be life threatening.

THE TREATMENT

If possible, broken hips are treated with an operation to repair the hip, physical therapy to help you gain strength after the operation, and medicine to help ease the pain.

Over time, pain from a broken hip may cause: Delirium” (confusion, excessive sleepiness, agitation, talk that does not make sense, or seeing things that are not there), poor sleep and depression.

Uncontrolled pain can also interfere with treatments for your other medical conditions. Pain can also slow down your physical therapy and recovery. Your doctor, nurse, or physical therapist will ask you about your pain. They may ask you to rate your pain so that they can see if treatment is helping. It is important to let them know if you are still in pain.

The amount of pain and type of pain from a broken hip can change during your treatment. For example, the pain can be different before and after an operation, during rehabilitation, and after you come home from the hospital.

MEDICATION

Your doctor may give you medicines to treat the pain before or after an operation to repair the broken hip. Some of these include:

Acetaminophen. This non-aspirin pain medicine is often used for many types of pain, such as body aches and headaches. It usually is not strong enough by itself to relieve the pain.

Opioid analgesics. Some common names for these drugs are morphine, codeine, and oxycodone. You may get these medicines as a pill, a shot, or through a tube in your arm (called an “IV”). Common side effects of opioid analgesics include nausea, vomiting, constipation, sleepiness, confusion and itchiness.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs. Some common names for these drugs are ibuprofen and naproxen. These medicines come as a pill or a liquid. Some of the common side effects of NSAIDs include dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, excess gas, irritation and bleeding of the stomach and intestines.

MORE OPTIONS

Researchers have studied other ways to manage pain, according to the Agency for Healthcare, Research and Quality. These other treatments include:

Nerve blocks: A nerve block uses a medicine called an “anesthetic” to numb the nerves so that you do not feel pain for a little while. Anesthetics are the same kind of medicine dentists use to numb teeth and gums. The nerve block will make a part of your body numb for a little while. Your doctor might use a nerve block to help ease your pain if you cannot take medicines like NSAIDs or opioids. Nerve blocks may be used before, during, or after an operation.

Traction: Traction is a treatment where a part of the body is pulled into a certain position. Traction is usually used before an operation.There  have been only a few studies on traction. They show that traction before an operation does not help relieve pain more than using pain medicines alone, but there is not enough research to know for sure.

Other treatment options include acupressure, muscle-relaxation therapy and  neurostimulation.

For more on medical issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach medical malpractice attorney.

The American College of Emergency Physicians offers these tips for taking a trip to the emergency department with your elderly parent:

1: Medical History Form: You and your parent’s physicians can complete the Medical History Form, which lists the medications your parent is taking, allergies as well as past and current medical conditions. Bring this form to the emergency department and give to the emergency physician.

2: Bring Reading Materials: Make sure you have a book, magazine, or a newspaper to read while you are waiting for results or to see a physician. It will make the time pass more quickly and help keep your stress level lower.

3: Anticipate Admission: Bring a change of clothes and some personal items in case your parent is admitted to the hospital. You can always leave them in the car.

4: Know Physician Contacts: Do you know all the names of the doctors your parents see? You should. Take some time now and find out their names, contact information, why your mother or father sees them and how long they have been seeing them. Write it down and hand it to the doctor or nurse in the emergency department. If you are traveling, have copies of the most recent doctor summary and a copy of an EKG if it is abnormal.

5: Convey Parent’s State of Mind: You know your parent better than the doctor. If he or she seems confused, explain to the physician what “normal” behavior is like. If the doctor is talking to you, make sure you are talking to your parent. Do your best to make sure they understand what is going on.

6: Consider Living Wills: A difficult thought, but important nonetheless. If a condition is life-threatening, you need know what the plan will be and what your parents’ wishes are

7: Report on Recent Surgeries: Keep track of surgeries, especially ones involving implanted devices such as hip replacements, or pace makers.

8: Simplify Insurance Information: Have a single sheet of paper with insurance and identification information.

9: Resist Downplaying: Realize that elderly patients often will talk down their symptoms to doctors or nurses and only tell it like it is to family members. Be ready to fill in the additional information if necessary.

10: Be Patient: Realize the more the complaints (almost always the older the patient), the longer it takes to work up the problems. Be patient with your physicians and your parent.

For more one elderly health and safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach nursing home injury attorney.

According to the Institute of Medicine, as many as 98,000 people die every year from preventable medical errors, the sixth leading cause of death in America.  The bill introduced by the US House of Representatives (H.R. 5) not only ignores patient safety, but also imposes severe, one-size-fits-all caps on damages that patients can seek when injured by medical negligence, defective drugs, medical devices, or abuse suffered in nursing homes, according to AAJ. It even extends this cap to health care providers that intentionally harm or kill patients, as well as insurance companies that refuse to pay just claims for medical bills.

“This bill is simply dangerous for patients. Eliminating legal accountability destroys any incentive to focus on the real problem – preventable medical errors and patient safety,” said AAJ President Gibson Vance in a press release.

The AAJ primer examines the latest research to counter many of the myths and distortions heard from those seeking to take away the legal rights of patients – such as the real costs of the medical negligence system, the frequency and validity of lawsuits, and the dangers patient may face if policies such as H.R. 5 are enacted.

“Medical Negligence: The Role of America’s Civil Justice System in Protecting Patients’ Rights” can be found at www.justice.org/medicalnegligence.

As the world’s largest trial bar, the American Association for Justice (formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) works to make sure people have a fair chance to receive justice through the legal system when they are injured by the negligence or misconduct of others–even when it means taking on the most powerful corporations.

The primer points to a study conducted by Harvard University in 2006 that shows that most negligence claims involve medical error and serious injury, and concluded “portraits of a malpractice system that is stricken with frivolous litigation are overblown.” The researchers found that few claims were without merit, and those that were generally did not receive any money.

Most negligence claims were meritorious, with 97 percent of claims involving medical injury and 80 percent involving physical injuries resulting in major disability or death. Few claims where there was not error were ever paid. In fact, researchers found the reverse – non-payment of claims where error was involved – was a bigger problem

The primer also points to research that shows that patients actually file claims because they are seeking answers. Too often, patients injured by preventable medical errors are left in the dark about what happened to them, and litigation is sometimes the only way to uncover what transpired. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 70 percent of patients who experience medical errors are not told by their doctors.

The most frequently echoed myth concerning medical negligence, according to the primer, is the notion that doctors are fleeing states and retiring early, creating physician shortages. Anecdotal accounts of doctors fleeing states in response to increased insurance premiums have proved to be either unrepresentative isolated events, or flat out false. In fact, data from the AMA shows that physician numbers have been increasing across the board for many years.

The total number of physicians in the U.S. rose to a record high in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available. There were 972,376 physicians in the U.S., nearly 18,000 more than the year before.  In 2009, the increase in physicians outpaced the increase in population once again. The number of physicians per 100,000 population is at an all-time high of 317. The increase of physician numbers compared to population growth has climbed steadily for decades.

“Any discussion of medical negligence that does not involve preventable medical errors ignores the fundamental problem,” concludes the AAJ primer. “Preventing medical errors will dramatically lower health care costs, reduce doctors’ insurance premiums, and protect the health and well-being of patients. The accountability promoted by the civil justice system is the engine of patient safety. No other mechanism or proposed alternative encourages accountability as effectively as the civil justice system.”

For more on medical safety issues, see the medical malpractice library of articles by Daytona Beach medical malpractice attorney

Florida state government now has a website available where you can compare mortality rates at hospitals to determine whether the hospital you are considering has a mortality rate that is, “higher than expected,” “lower than expected,” or “as expected.” You can determine mortality rates for specific types of conditions such as heart attacks, hip replacements, strokes, coronary artery bypass, craniotomy, gastrointestinal hemorrhage and abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.

The ratings take into account the acuity of the hospital’s patients. This makes it more likely that comparisons from one hospital to the other are valid. For instance, some hospitals might take care of more severely sick patients. Thus you would expect a higher mortality rate than in hospitals taking care of less acute patients. The state ratings take this into account.

As of the date of this writing for example, Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach was listed as having a mortality rate “higher than expected” for patients with pneumonia. Other hospitals in Volusia County all had mortality rates “as expected.” We cannot be certain that this higher mortality rate was a result of medical malpractice. The fact, however, that the mortality rate is higher than expected is something that should be taken into consideration when thinking about whether you want to be treated at Halifax.

For more information go to Florida Health Finder and the medical malpractice section of the Zimmet & Quarles website, zqlawyers.com.

In these circumstances, it is especially important to know about the infection rates in hospitals or nursing homes you are considering for healthcare for you or a loved one. Fortunately Florida state government agrees that this information is vital and has gone to a great deal of time and expense to make it available to the Florida public. Representatives of the Florida Department of Health inspect hospitals and nursing homes and collect data on a wide variety of issues.

You can now compare infection rates from one hospital to another by a simple and quick internet search. The Florida Health Finder allows you to search by health condition, hospital or ambulatory surgical center. You can identify the health-care provider by county or name. You can compare length of stay and charges, mortality rates, complications and infection rates, and facility profiles.

A search to compare infection rates in Volusia County revealed that as of the date of this writing Halifax Health in Daytona Beach and Florida Hospital Ormond Memorial were listed as having an infection rate “higher-than-expected.”  This rating was for “infections due to medical care.” The Agency explained that this means the facility had, “More complications/infections than expected given how sick patients were.” “The results shown [on the site] are posted as reported and certified by health care facilities to the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), Florida Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis. Th[e] data is effective as of  February 25, 2009.”

In order to avoid medical malpractice and death from serious infections in a hospital in Volusia County, Daytona Beach, Deltona and Ormond Beach it is critical to compare complication and infection rates before elective surgery.