I was both pleased and proud to read yesterday’s letter in the Courier-Journal by Ken Marshall, President of University of Louisville Hospital, recommitting to a higher quality of medical care for our community, including its most vulnerable citizens. Alas, under the clinical and management captivity by Catholic Health Initiatives and KentuckyOne Health, the hospital has performed unfavorably in virtually every quality-comparison with other hospitals, including other teaching and safety-net hospitals. Indeed, major layoffs of clinical and support staff by KentuckyOne, and concerns about quality of care by some staff physicians drew Federal attention that threatened the Hospital’s accreditation.
Various of the many items measured and methodologies used by the numerous evaluating entities have been criticized, and in my opinion sometimes rightly so. After all, what constitutes quality? One major criticism of current federal and proprietary hospital quality assments is that they do not adequately take into consideration the socio-economic status or severity of illness in the patient populations served. With all the valid current emphasis on the nonmedical determinants of health care status and outcomes, how can we not take these into consideration? Nevertheless, for University Hospital there is nowhere to go but up. Continue reading “University of Louisville Hospital Pledges To Do Better.”
