The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "American Hospital Association" ...
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Command Mistake
As a result of this WISH-TV (Indianapolis, IN) report, the United States Marine Corps is now issuing helmets with ballistic padding to all marines. Previously, only the Army was issuing padded helmets; and some marines were buying their own padding. The story showed that college football players' helmets were more protective than the marine helmet."The cost to care for a head-injured soldier with permanent brain damage is $2.5 to $3 million. The cost of the helmet pads is as little as $30." Story contains on-ground elements filmed in Germany and Iraq.
Tags: Traumatic brain injury research; TBI; concussion; ballistic pad testing; football helmet testing; Kevlar helmet; roadside bomb blasts; Commanding General George Casey; Baghdad; Fallujah; Landstuhl Medical Center, Germany; Riddell; Brigadier General John Kelley; Congressman Steve Buyer; Indiana National Guard; Roudebush VA Medical Center; craniectomy; aphasia; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; Joint Theater Trauma Registry; Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center; DVBIC; Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital; Traumatic Brain Injury in the War Zone; Susan Okie, MD; New England Journal of Medicine; American Football Coaches Association; University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program
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Bad Practices Net Hospitals More Money
This three part series delves into the various problems that plague Medicare. One issue that comes up is how the system is set up so that hospitals get more money for each visit, even if those extra visits are a result of an infection picked up in an unsanitary ward. As a result, the highest quality health care providers end up with substantially less funding. The articles also touch on how the Medicare system encourages unnecessary surgery and a possible conflict of interest with the hospital inspectors.
Tags: Medicare; Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization; American Medical Association; hospital inspections; doctors; clinics; HMOs; insurance
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The Troubles at King/ Drew
The reporters began with a basic analysis of all the hospitals in the Los Angeles County public hospital system. They found that the most severe problems and violations were happening at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, formed after the 1965 Watts riots to serve the poor of southern Los Angeles. The problems ranged from underfunding to staff misdiagnoses, accidental patient deaths, and racist politics on the hospital's Board of Supervisors. The reporters also interviewed healthcare experts and published six detailed possible solutions to the problems facing the hospital.
Tags: healthcare; doctors; pathologist; Medical Board of California; American Medical Association; medical malpractice; civil rights
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The Cost of Courage
From small community hospitals, to Ivy League medical centers, physicians are increasingly facing retaliation from hospitals for reporting poor care. America's physicians are sworn to protect their patients from harm, but increasingly face a surprising obstacle. Doctors who step forward to warn of unsafe conditions or a colleague's poor work say they have been targeted by hospital administrators or boards. This is done by labeling the physicians "disruptive," then terminating their admitting privileges and listing them in a national data bank, effectively crippling their careers.
Tags: Center Community Hospital; hospital administration; hospital boards; National Practitioner Data Ban; patient care; hospital attorneys; suspension; Cleveland's University Hospitals; physicians; whistleblower physicians; Pennsylvania Medical Society; Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; American Medical Association; Health Care Quality Improvement Act; Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center; Cleveland Clinic; Case Western Reserve University; hospital inspections; VA's Office of Healthcare Inspections
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Twenty Years and Still Paying : Jeanette White Is Long Dead but Her Hospital Bill Lives On; Full Price: A Young Man, An Appendectomy and a $19,000 Bill Ms.Nix Confronts Harsh Facts of Medical Care Economics -- The Uninsured Are Billed More; Medical Seizures: Hospitals Try Extreme Measures to Collect Their Overdue Debts
The Journal reveals how America's uninsured are asked to pay much more for their health care than anyone else. This series puts the spotlight on a shockingly unfair billing system, revealing how hospitals bill those without coverage the highest rates, then relentlessly pursue these vulnerable patients using strong-arm tactics that includes lawsuits, wage garnishments, bank account seizures and even jail.
Tags: Medicare; Medicaid; Illinois Hospital Association; American Hospital Association; Quinton White; Champaign County-Illinois; Elizabeth Benjamin; Legal Aid Society; Yale-New Haven; Service Employees International Union
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"A Question of Trust
For years, federal officials knew that Karen Fotiou, a woman pretending to be a lawyer, was targeting disabled veterans. She was illegally charging them for filing claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Records show she illegally collected nearly $200,000 from veterans who had little or no income and who suffered from emotional and physical problems. Even though federal officials had evidence she was breaking the law, they never charged her, never warned veterans about her and even helped her continue operating. She was able to operate freely because filing claims with the VA is slow, and an often unfair process; and veterans, under the law cannot pay a lawyer to help them. When mistakes happen in the VA system, no-one is held accountable.
Tags: disabled veterans; Department of Veterans Affairs; Veterans Affairs Medical Center-Northport; VA Hospital; U.S. Inspector Genera report; state corporate records; court appeals; New York Bar Association; VA investigators; Disabled American Veterans; National Organization of Veterans Advocates; post-traumatic stress; filing claims
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Big Brother's Corporate Cousin
The Nation explores the fast development of the high-tech workplace surveillance that is finding its way onto most American offices, call centers, restaurants and even hospital wards. The story points to Internet as the tool that has advanced workplace surveillance the most, and reveals that pornography is foremost among the web attractions. "Sophisticated surveillance technology isn't just for catching laggards and thieves; it has also been used to break worker organizing," reports the magazine.
Tags: American Management Association; workers; unions; software; Aspect; Pokky system; Customer Relationship Management system; point-of-sale systems; exploitation; computers; networks; e-mails; monitoring
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Labor Movement: Shortage of Nurses Hits Hardest Where They are Needed the Most
The Wall Street Journal reports on the shortage of nurses in Ghana, Africa. "More than 500 left the country last year, most to take higher-paying jobs in wealthy countries. Nurses in Ghana, a poor country, earn about $75 a month. Last year's departures were nearly triple the 1999 total and more than double the number of nursing graduates Ghana produced in 2000." Furthermore, "the global flow of nurses, from poor to rich lands, reflects the way talent today goes to the highest bidder, regardless of national borders. This rewards talented people, of course, but adds to the problems of health-care systems in many poor nations."
Tags: nurses; medical; American Nurses Association; recruiters; hospitals; earnings; doctors; health care
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Doctors Credentials
There's a lot of information about bad doctors scattered around county courthouses, state regulatory offices and professional associations. There is even a federal databank that compiles the results of medical malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary actions before state agencies and hospital boards. But access to the federal databank is tightly restricted, largely through the efforts of the American Medical Association. It is not available to the people who need it most. As a result of these restrictions, people looking for a family doctor or for a specialist have no way to tell which doctors have been sued or disciplined for poor medical practice.
Tags: TAPE
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No title (id: 12991)
Throughout America there are thousands of doctors--working in hospitals, clinics and private offices--who hurt and even fatally injure patients through incompetence or carlessness yet remain in active practice. Although only 5 to 10 percent of licensed physicans pose a significant risk to patients, that translates to 31,000 to 65,000 physicians. The Parade looks at the injuries or deaths some of these doctors have caused, how to identify them and what can be done to avoid them. (April 14, 1996)