The title of this post sounds like the title of made-for-TV movie. But it's fact. A baby boy was mistakenly sent home with the wrong family. The mistake happened in March at Heartland Regional Medical Center in southern Illinois. Upon realizing the error, hospital workers immediately contacted the families. Though they were not required to do so, the hospital reported the incident to state authorities.

I don't know how, in today's day and age, an error like this could occur. When people I know have given birth recently there are alarms on the maternity ward, infants and their parents wear matching bracelets, and photo IDs are taken of the children. In addition, unless there are medical issues, infants usually stay with their parents more now than in the past. At the time of writing, Heartland Regional Medical Center's web site isn't responding, so I'm not sure what their internal policies are.

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Every so often, we hear news reports about accidental deaths or overdoses due to over-prescribed, often unnecessary drugs or surgery. But these seems to be rare, right? We'd like to think so, anyway. I recently read some alarming statistics on deaths in the US:

• 12,000 were caused by unnecessary surgery
• 7,000 were caused by medication errors in hospitals
• 20,000 were caused by other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 were caused by infections in hospitals
• 106,000 were caused by non-error, negative effects of drugs.

That's right -- in one of the most medically-advanced countries in the world, hundreds of thousands of people are dying at the hands of medical professionals by errors, unnecessary measures and other preventable causes. Does this seem odd to anyone else? I think its time we began questioning the motivations behind the 'remedies' we're being offered.

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Interested in finding out which hospitals rank in the upper echelon of health care facilities? Thankfully we have organizations whose sole purpose it is to do that sort of thing. Enter HealthGrades, who has put out their second annual America's 50 Best Hospitals list just today.

Even though this is the second iteration of the report, hospitals were ranked based on their quality starting back in 2003. Certain elements of health care were assessed to provide a basis. For instance, they looked at the procedures surrounding heart attacks, pneumonia, and strokes.

They also looked at mortality data. So you want to know the best already? They were listed in alphabetical order, so it should be easy to find your local facilities that way. Notables included the Mayo Clinic Hospital, St. Joseph's out of Atlanta, and the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Anyone have any experience with our nation's best?

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In a move that is sure to make hospital administrators feel slightly uneasy, medicare is implementing a no-pay policy for hospital errors that could have been prevented. These eight medical mistakes are not going to be reimbursed to facilities which mess up and do things like leave objects inside people after surgery.

Other insurers are starting to catch on as well. This could lead to better patient care because hospitals will want to mitigate any chance of extraneous costs -- especially if they aren't getting paid back for it. Another item on the do-not-pay list is urinary tract infections from catheters.

Twenty-five percent of patients get one of these, yet only ten percent or less of hospitals check every day to see if they're even necessary. So someone could end up with a catheter for days on end without even needing it -- which leads to urinary tract infections. Tacked on costs for these types of mistakes can run up your hospital bill by $10,000 or more! It will be interesting to see if (and how much) this improves medical care to those people in such facilities.

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We've all heard horror stories of medical mistakes made in hospitals, things like surgeries on the wrong body part, surgeries on the wrong person, and of course all kinds of fun things left sown inside people after surgery has been completed. Thankfully, hospitals are required to report these things to the government, but what they may not be required to do is share that information with you, the patient.

Some hospitals are fighting making that information public, despite the fact that it's the people's tax money and the people's lives at stake. In Washington, for example, hospitals will no longer be releasing their numbers on adverse events to the public.

That's just plain messed up, seriously.

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Here's some scary heath news: even if you don't have symptoms, harmful and potentially fatal bacteria can be lurking in your guts. One type of bacteria in particularly seems to thrive -- Clostridium, which can cause a dangerous type of diarrhea. What's even more frightening is that in a study, the bacteria was shown to be lurking all over hospitals and healthcare facilites.

But there's a surefire way to prevent transmission of bacteria -- cleanliness. If healthcare providers wear gloves, wash their hands and adequately sterilize their environments, there would be no problem. But since there's no way to ensure that they're doing their part, do your by washing your hands.

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Sadly, the way the hospital system works most people rarely (if ever) get a choice regarding which hospital they're treated in. It's either an emergency and you end up where ever the ambulance takes you, or if it's a planned situation your choices are usually dictated by your insurance company. But all of that aside, amidst all the health care debates and red tape, some hospitals are rising to the top and managing to give superior care to the people lucky enough to get a bed in one of their rooms.

Leapfrog Group, a health care business group, recently conducted a survey to find the nations top hospitals. They came up with a list of 33 hospitals and 8 children's hospitals all across the country. The best are mostly located in big cities (which is a little frustrating for somebody like me in small town Iowa) and although you can see the complete list here the top three hospitals are:

• Alta Bates Summit Medical Center-Summit Campus, Oakland CA
• Baystate Medical Center, Springfield MA
• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston MA

If you or a loved one have ever been treated here count yourself lucky! Unless you had a bad experience?

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I thought it was a known fact that cell phones were a no-no in hospitals, but everytime I go to one, I see a number of people chatting on their cell phones or texting like mad. What's the deal? Is it ok to use your cell phone in a hospital or not?

The answer is not, though there currently aren't any national guidelines concerning this issue. Wireless devices can negatively interfere with the machinery at hospitals and shouldn't be used. Devices that use Wifi, GPRS or some other method to get onto the Internet at the worst offenders, and while normal cell phones might be ok to use in some hospitals, callers should certainly avoid using them in ICU, operating or emergency units.

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The communication barriers in American medical facilities will only get worse as more people in the country seek medical services as the population increases. Although many hospitals already require bilingual employees, what about that life threatening situation where a language barrier can prevent quick action and treatment?

That's happening with widening alarm, and the growing use of pictureboards instead of written directions and instructions are easing the problem somewhat, according to emergency room staffers.

Similar to airplane safety pictureboards, easily understood pictorials take the place of words (generally in English) that can cause miscommunications and delays in treatment. Have you seen one in a hospital near you?

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All walk-in health clinics inside grocery and pharmacy stores the wave of the future for cheap and immediate health care? In an country where over 40 million of us are medically uninsured, health clinics in neighborhood stores are becoming more popular and many millions of citizens are probably using them.

But what happens when the need for urgent medical care is bypassed by the medical inexperience of handling of these clinics, can wrongful deaths happen as a result? This is certain to happen in my opinion -- and with it will come lawsuits against these health 'clinics' that don't have the background of a licensed physician's office.

The good news is that some doctors are seizing entrepreneurial ground and are taking part in these clinics. That's good news, since I'm not sure that heart palpitation could be served a solution by a small office inside Wal-Mart or Target.

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The American Society of Anesthesiologists is getting ready to do something this fall that it has never done before: issue guidelines aimed at preventing surgery fires. Who knew that there are 50 to 100 surgery fires each year, and of those fires 20% of the patients are severely burned and disfigured while 1 or 2 unfortunate souls die as a result? Of all the things that come to mind when thinking "things that can go wrong during surgery" having the surgical area and patient burst into flames isn't one of them. But it happens, and it happens often enough that there are going to be standards to help reduce the odds. That's scary.

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Nurses and doctors sometimes get to take abuse on the job in an undeserved fashion. It's true that both positions in the medical industry have to deal with unhappy and sick patients (not to mention, emotionally charged). But where does the line need to be drawn at outright abuse.

In fact, should nurses be able to file charges against patients for attacks? After reading some of the stories below, I would think so. Threats and physical attacks are not pleasant for any receiver.

A recent survey stated that 86% of nurses reported being a victim of workplace violence during the prior three years. That right there is astounding. Have hospitals become violent houses of frustration like road rage drivers on the highway? Just like teachers who have to play the role of psychologist to kids with severe emotional problems caused by unbalanced families, nurses must be dealing with similar issues. And, it's no fringe benefit at all.

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Of all the threats we face in the world today (disease, accidents, terrorism, and the list goes on) who would have thought something perfectly preventable like medical errors would earn 5th place on the list of leading causes of death in this country? Transcription errors, adverse drug reactions, and incomplete patient records account for as many as 98,000 deaths in the U.S. every year. The strained health care system is dealing regularly with too many patients for too little staff, which is obviously a dangerous combination, but thankfully there are some moves being made to help reduce this problem. CIS (clinical information systems) are being utilized by more and more hospitals to hopefully reduce errors by providing an easy and reliable resource, but I'm afraid that mistakes will continue to be a problem as long as medical facilities are chronically understaffed and patient loads soar higher and higher.

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Okay, so here's a thought from the health care industry: flat rate surgery, with a warranty? A hospital group in Pennsylvania is doing just that, charging a flat fee for services that includes 90 days of follow-up care. This approach to health care encourages medical professionals to give better care as opposed to more care, since the less follow-up a patient requires the better for everybody. The way the health system currently works in this country hospitals are almost rewarded for errors and sub-par care by needing to see the patient again, and billing for even more services.

I think this is a great idea, although do you think hospitals would start to get choosy about who they performed certain procedures on? It might make things difficult for high-risk patients and people with complicated mixes of health conditions.

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So a couple of news bits came out together at the end of last week:

#1 Cell phones are, after all, okay to use in hospitals. This is good news not because I think people need to spend more time on their mobile phones than they already do, but if there's any place that deserves the right for impromptu or impulsive phone calls it's in a hospital, where lives can change in mere moments.

and

#2 Store anti-theft devices (the kind that stand on either side of the entrance) may cause pacemakers and internal defibrillators to malfunction. It's only happened two times (documented times, anyway), but that's enough to cause some concern, obviously.

Ironic, somehow.

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