Hospital Patients

Blood clots can be painful, difficult to diagnose, even life-threatening. But hospital patients -- who are at an especially high risk of developing the condition -- often don't receive treatment to prevent them, researchers have found. A hospital stay, even one as short as a few days, can greatly increase the chance of developing a clot in the legs or lungs. In fact, blood clots in the lungs, known as pulmonary embolisms, are blamed for as much as 10 percent of deaths in hospitalized patients.

Maryland is the only state in the nation to enjoy a federal exemption that allows it to regulate how much hospitals can charge patients, much like the state public service commission regulates utility rates. Under the system administered by state's Health Services Cost Review Commission, hospital patients are charged the same rate no matter where they seek care, and health insurance companies all contribute equally to help cover the cost of uncompensated care for people who lack the means to pay. The result has been that hospital costs as well as overall spending on health care have risen more slowly in Maryland than anywhere else in the country.

Four patients in an intensive-care unit at University of Maryland Medical Center have been isolated after lab tests showed that they have a relatively uncommon bacterial infection that is resistant to antibiotics. Doctors identified the bacterium as Acinetobacter baumannii, known to attack wounded military personnel and hospital patients with weakened immune systems. The isolated patients at the hospital have a treatment team assigned to them, members of which wear gowns and gloves, and the hospital has minimized risks that the infection might spread to its nine other intensive-care units, said Dr. Harold Standiford, medical director of infection control.

For generations, patients entering Johns Hopkins Hospital walked past an oil painting of the founder and a marble statue of Jesus Christ. In the building that Hopkins opened this spring, they see blue and green rhinos, a flying ostrich and a purple cow jumping over 28 moons. The playful sculptures help differentiate the new building from its 19th-century predecessor, which seems hopelessly stuffy by comparison. But there's much more to the new Hopkins Hospital — Baltimore's first $1 billion building — than its sculptural menagerie.

For generations, patients entering Johns Hopkins Hospital walked past an oil painting of the founder and a marble statue of Jesus Christ. In the building that Hopkins opened this spring, they see blue and green rhinos, a flying ostrich and a purple cow jumping over 28 moons. The playful sculptures help differentiate the new building from its 19th-century predecessor, which seems hopelessly stuffy by comparison. But there's much more to the new Hopkins Hospital — Baltimore's first $1 billion building — than its sculptural menagerie.

ON ARRIVING at a doctor's office, the patient signs a peel-off sticker that is immediately removed and the name transferred to a computer screen, hidden by privacy panels from waiting-room view. The new arrival takes a number, as at a bakery, because names are not called out by the receptionist. Future appointments can't be made at the reception desk, within earshot of others, only later over the phone. A helpful spouse who calls to change or confirm the appointment is stonewalled. Laboratory test results are hand-delivered to the office instead of sent via insecure fax. These cumbersome complications are among the ways that some well-meaning health care providers have been interpreting new national rules designed to protect patient privacy.

For Donald and Joann Miles, the spare hours accompanying retirement are put to good use.The Woodbine couple has worked more than 600 hours this year in volunteer jobs at Howard County General Hospital. There, each has begun a second career -- but this time, they don't get paid.Donald Miles, 63, has donated approximately 1,350 hours since he joined the hospital volunteer staff in 1988, working at least two days a week in the emergency room and the recovery room. He worked Christmas Day."I was in the hospital one day and it seemed to me that they could use some help," said Donald, a retired planner who worked 37 years with the Potomac Electric Power Co. "You always hear retired people say they have nothing to do, so I decided I'd do something."

A handful of common medical complications kill more than 32,500 U.S. hospital patients every year and add $9.3 billion annually to hospital charges, estimates one of the first studies to put a price tag on unexpected harm to patients. The study, which appears in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, estimates that the same 18 categories of injury -- ranging from postoperative sepsis to surgical tools left in patients' bodies -- force people to extend hospital stays by a combined 2.4 million days a year.

CHICAGO -- Illinois is poised to become the first state to require hospitals to implement programs combating a dangerous, drug-resistant bacterium that kills thousands of people in the U.S. each year. Under a bill moving through the Legislature, hospitals would be required to test for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in all intensive-care and "at-risk" patients, such as those transferred from nursing homes. If it is detected, aggressive measures to prevent transmission would kick in. MRSA is a potentially virulent bacterium that has developed strong defenses against common antibiotics such as penicillin.

A second Maryland hospital has reported losing sensitive computerized data on tens of thousands of patients, raising another alarm about how consumer information is protected. Up to 130,000 former and current patients at St. Mary's Hospital in Leonardtown have recently been notified that a laptop with personal information was stolen from the hospital in December. Just last week, Johns Hopkins officials reported the loss of thousands of employee and patient records. Last seen Dec. 5 in St. Mary's emergency care center, the computer included the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates of patients who had been treated as long ago as 1989, said Christine Wray, the hospital's president and chief executive officer.

A mistrial was declared Friday in the murder trial of a man charged with strangling a fellow patient at a state psychiatric hospital, a spokesman for Howard County prosecutors said. Jurors had deliberated for about 11 hours over two days before telling Circuit Judge Timothy J. McCrone that they were deadlocked. El Soundani El-Wahhabi, 51, also known as Saladin Taylor, is accused in the Sept. 26, 2010, death of Susan Sachs, 45, who was found strangled in her bed in the state's Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center.

A former staff member at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center was found not guilty Thursday of assaulting a patient at the state's maximum-security psychiatric hospital. Rita Ward, 56, was charged with assault of 25-year-old Lori Shilling. The patient, who had been found not criminally responsible in a 2008 robbery, alleged that Ward was one of two hospital workers who forcibly dragged her to her room in a June 2010 incident at the Jessup hospital. The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for more than two hours before reaching the verdict, and Ward grabbed her lawyer's hand and cried when it was announced.

After a hospital patient was shot and seriously wounded in an apparent robbery Thursday evening, University of Maryland officials sought to assure students and staff that its campus is safe and pledged to step up patrols. Police confirmed Friday that the 45-year-old victim was a Frederick County man who, according to sources, was a patient at the University of Maryland Medical Center where he was receiving treatment after being stabbed in a home invasion in March. Officials declined to give a motive, but according to a copy of an incident report, the victim told a woman who found him suffering from gunshot wounds on the sixth level of an underground parking garage that he had been robbed and shot in the back.

A patient at the Clifton T. Perkins mental hospital in Jessup is being charged with murder after another patient was found dead in her room Sunday morning with a string tied around her neck, state police investigators said. Maryland State Police are expected to charge El Soundani El-Wahhabi, also known as Saladin Taylor, in the death of Susan Sachs, 45, also a patient at Perkins. Sachs was found face down in her bed about 8:30 a.m. by a nurse who went to check on her after she didn't show up for breakfast.

Maryland patients will pay hundreds of dollars more for hospital stays under price hikes made final Wednesday by the state agency that sets rates for the medical institutions. The price for health care that hospitals pass on to insurers and patients will soar 4.4 percent this year — adding $596 million to the total tab — under several rate increases approved by the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. As a result, the average inpatient hospital bill will rise $386, to $12,141.

The Rev. E. Gerard Huesman, a retired Roman Catholic pastor and former Johns Hopkins Hospital chaplain, died of heart failure June 7 at St. Joseph's Nursing Home in Catonsville. He was 95. Born in Baltimore and raised on Westgate Road, he attended St. Pius V and St. Agnes parish schools before entering the St. Charles Roman Catholic Seminary in Catonsville. He completed his studies at St. Mary's Seminary & University in Roland Park. Archbishop J. Michael Curley ordained him to the priesthood in 1941.

Johns Hopkins Hospital, dealing with disclosures that one of its surgeons died of AIDS, is calling for legislation that would require all health care workers infected with the virus to report their illness to their supervisors or hospitals."

A man suspected of stalking a patient at Union Memorial Hospital was shot outside the medical facility Wednesday night by two members of a warrant task force who were staking out the institution after learning he was inside, according to a police spokesman. The man's name was not released; he was being treated at a different hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman, said a warrant was issued in mid-January charging the man with attempted murder after he stabbed a person outside a Royal Farm store in the 1000 block of W. 36th St. in Hampden.