Healthcare in Delaware (Wilmington, Dover, Newark: credit, home, inspection)

[Gone-2-Beach]

I've started this topic because we've had some discussions in different forums about healthcare in Delaware and thought it might be a good idea to pull it all together in one place.

There has been some suspicion that maybe healthcare in Delaware is not all that it needs to be. I'm a former healthcare manager and I'd like to start doing some research on the web to determine some actual facts about healthcare in Delaware.

Every hospital in the country is evaluated on a regular basis by a number of regulatory and inspection agencies. Probably the most stringent in the Joint Commission of Accrediation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) ... at least that's the one that we feared the most. So I'm hoping to review the JCAHO site, and others, and find much info on the healthcare situation in Delaware as I can.

Please feel free to contribute whatever other facts you can provide to this topic and hopefully together we'll be able to determine whether the poor impression Delaware healthcare has is justified or rumor.

Thanks so much.
Charley

[elizamary]

Originally Posted by CMTAD

I've started this topic because we've had some discussions in different forums about healthcare in Delaware and thought it might be a good idea to pull it all together in one place.

There has been some suspicion that maybe healthcare in Delaware is not all that it needs to be. I'm a former healthcare manager and I'd like to start doing some research on the web to determine some actual facts about healthcare in Delaware.

Every hospital in the country is evaluated on a regular basis by a number of regulatory and inspection agencies. Probably the most stringent in the Joint Commission of Accrediation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) ... at least that's the one that we feared the most. So I'm hoping to review the JCAHO site, and others, and find much info on the healthcare situation in Delaware as I can.

Please feel free to contribute whatever other facts you can provide to this topic and hopefully together we'll be able to determine whether the poor impression Delaware healthcare has is justified or rumor.

Thanks so much.
Charley

Great topic Charley.........

As you know, we are new to DE and need to know more about this ourselves. I too have gotten conflicting information concerning health care in Kent County.

I do have to say, so far............we have had very good experiences. Of course our experiences were just routine.

I do wonder if we had some life threatening illness how I would feel about the care down here.

I'm going to be following this thread for some much need valuable information.

[Gone-2-Beach]

As far as hospitals, I'll be looking only at the general services hospitals, specifically Kent General (Dover), Milford Memorial (Milford), Beebe Medical Center (Lewes), Christiana Care (Newark), Wilmington (Wilmington), Nanticoke Memorial (Seaford) and St. Francis (Wilmington).

There are others, like Nemours which is a children's hospital, and some psychiatric and VA hospitals that I am not including in my review. I'm looking at the general services hospitals only.

I'm not sure how I'll be able to look at doctor's offices and practices, other than finding word-of-mouth information. There were some websites that were "rate your doctor" types of sites, but I'm not sure if they are still up and running ... and who sponsors them. I'll check into it as part of my work.

Charley

[SXMGirl]

Just to chime in here... Christiana Care in Newark has an excellent cardiac unit. I was in there by mistake and they took very good care of me, and I think they are known for being one of the best. As far as the other units of the hospital, let's just say that I don't plan to be going back any time soon. I left with a "present" that they are not sure what it is. They thought staph but we don't know. I can also tell you that I never slept because the night nurse kept trying to give me the wrong meds. I had an MRI at midnight on my last night there, and the young man who took me down to the lab asked me if I slept there. When I told him why I did not, he said that was common. Last spring, Governor Minner had an open discussion in Dover regarding people who had problems with hospital care. Unfortunately, I could not attend because it was held at 2 p.m. However, I think there was a good bit of negative feedback.

[Gone-2-Beach]

I've reviewed the Joint Commission website. The hospitals are arranged slightly differently than the way I presented them. Kent and Milford are presented together as Bayhealth. Christiana and Wilmington are presented together as Christiana. St. Francis is not listed. Here are the results ... and they are better than I expected.

Bayhealth: Fully Accredited: 7/10/2007.
Specific National Standards: Patient Safety - meets standards.
Heart Attack - below standard.
Heart Failure - exceeds standard.
Pneumonia Care - meets standard.

Beebe: Fully Accredited: 3/12/05
Specific National Standards: Patient Safety - meets standards.
Heart Attack - meets standard.
Heart Failure - exceeds standard.
Pneumonia Care - below standard.

Christiana: Fully Accredited: 11/20/04
Specific National Standards: Patient Safety - meets standards.
Heart Attack - exceeds standard.
Heart Failure - exceeds standard.
Pregnancy Care - not displayed (not necessarily a problem)

Nanticoke Memorial: Fully Accredited: 12/10/2005
Specific National Standards: Patient Safety - meets standards.
Heart Attack - meets standard.
Heart Failure - exceeds standard.
Pneumonia Care - exceeds standard.

OK ... lots of technical talk coming ... sorry.

Why does Bayhealth not meet the heart attack standard? There are eight specific sub-standards within the standard. Bayhealth failed on one of the sub-standards so they fail the entire standard. That one sub-standard where they failed was "This measure reports what percent of heart attack patients who have problems with the heart pumping enough blood to the body were prescribed medicines to improve the heart’s ability to pump blood on discharge". In order to pass the standard, this has to happen 87% of the time. It only happened for 68% of the 85 patients studied in this standard. Note: There may be good reasons why the medicines were not subscribed and therefore this could be a non-issue in reality ... but based on the national standard, Bayhealth did not meet this standard.

I like seeing that Bayhealth did receive full accreditation. In 2000 and 2003, they received Accreditation with Requirements for Improvement, which is a way of saying "OK, we're accrediting you, but you have lots of work to do and we'll be watching". (... and they do watch!) In 2006, they received Provisional Accreditation, which means you're better, but not yet at standard. So seeing that they are fully accredited in 2007 is a nice step up!

Overall, from the perspective of JCAHO surveys, which I can tell you are extremely rigorous. These are pretty good results. I'm surprised, given some of the things I've read in these forums ... but it's a good surprise.

[JoycieM]

Thanks so much, Charley. You do a great service for the people reading this site especially those of us who want to retire in Delaware. Thanks again!
Joyce

[peeweeaz]

Charley,
Super info on hospital care in Delaware. I'm sure everyone will benefit from your research. I've seen a lot of hit and miss opinions and comments about health care in DE in this forum. Your research will help clear up or confirm the conceptions about this subject. Thanks for taking the time to give us the info.

SXMGirl,

Isn't this the same governor who seems to not want to take on Dupont over the toxic waste sites in northern DE??

[Gone-2-Beach]

This is a link to a 46 page report on the four hospitals listed above:

Hospital Research Report - UCompareHealthCare

I assembed this at the ucomparehealthcare website and I'm not sure how long it will remain assembled. It's loaded with details on services, statistics, quality measures and more. I know we really shouldn't post links, but it's probably better to post the link than the 46 pages of data. If the link does not remain and you want to send me a private message, I'll send you the link privately.

Charley

P.S. No, I have not reviewed this data yet, but wanted to get it listed for you so you could take a look at it as well.

[Gone-2-Beach]

Joyce and Peewee ... thanks so much.

For me, the decision to pick up and move to Delaware is a big one. I want to be sure that I've checked out as many facts about EVERYTHING as I can, and I'm happy to share what I find with my list mates.

Charley

[maryCh]

Wow Charley... what a great job! While we are not quite retirement age (mid-40's), healthcare standards & issues are important to us. My husband and I are in a different situation (as I'm sure I posted before... sorry for duplication) in that he works in NYC and "commutes" home on weekends. As I may have posted before, that was one of the draws to DE... opportunities for more frequent weekends.

Our personal spin on the situation is that, in NY, HE has access (in theory) to some of the best medical minds and facilities in the world. On the other hand, the kids and I moved here from rural NC, so the medical facilities here are a big improvement from where we've been for 15 years. I'm finding almost daily that ALOT of NY'ers are moving here, and the quality of healthcare will be a very common topic of conversation.

Frankly, from what I have heard so far, Delaware does not seem to be far off the mark than most of the rest of the states. Even though I still have 2 kids left at home, I'm trying to "proceed with caution" regarding doctors in this area. In fact, I have an appt with a group recommended by elizamary. Will report back with a formal inspection and impression afterwards.

Mary