Medicare's pay-for-performance program ranks and rewards hospitals according to how well they meet certain guidelines for clinical care. But researchers at Duke Clinical Research Institute say the program penalizes hospitals that care for the greatest numbers of the poor and needy by not taking into account their greater clinical burden.

When a hospital is capacity constrained, the constraint can affect admission and discharge decisions. A new study in the RAND Journal of Economics examined how hospitals' admission and discharge behavior is affected by fluctuations in demand.

A dead body was left in a ward in Stobhill Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland for seven hours before it was removed.

Patients enter hospitals every day for a variety of reasons but usually without the thought of developing a new health problem. Yet every year thousands of hospitalized Americans acquire infections during hospital stays, causing risk of complications, prolonged stays and an increased burden on the health-care system.

Despite changes over the last fifteen years in national accreditation guidelines making the religious and spiritual care of hospitalized patients a right, there is no evidence yet that this protection has had any effect on the number of hospitals with chaplains.

The Australian Medical Association has attacked the workability of proposed super clinics as a myth that could lead to misdiagnosis in patients.

Rating the quality of hospital care has become all the rage, despite the risk of consumers not really understanding what the ratings mean. Now www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov has detailed hospital rating information for comparison.

The Coliseum hospital in Macon is participating in recognizing today as National Healthcare Decisions Day, and it is providing information for people to give advance directives to let their wishes be known regarding health-care decisions in a crisis.

Lawton Comanche County Memorial Hospital was named a 2008 " Distinguished Hospital for Patient Safety," according to the fifth annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.

Doctors have warned an inquiry that public hospitals will soon face crippling staff shortages in some sectors because private hospitals are poaching experienced doctors.

Patient satisfaction surveys reveal Saint Luke's metro facilities provide best hospital experience.

From this month - April 2008 - there will be a dramatic expansion of UK patient choice in the NHS.