It’s a confusing situation for patients and a financially necessary one for hospitals: If a hospital cannot decide whether a patient is appropriate for inpatient admission, the patient can be kept up ...

If you find yourself in the emergency department and the doctor says he wants to keep you at the hospital for "observation," take heed. Depending on the hospital, observation can mean very different ...

NOBLESVILLE, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Collette Health, a leading provider of continuous virtual patient observation solutions, today announced a new feature, Third Party Join, that allows members of the ...

The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), which represents hospitalists, has called for the elimination of observation status in acute care hospitals. The society would replace it with a new low-acuity ...

From a policy perspective, observation stays are intended to reduce the number of improper or fraudulent inpatient admissions, which frequently are medically unnecessary. However, classifying Medicare ...

If you're on Medicare and you're in the hospital for a few days, you may think you're an inpatient. The hospital may have other ideas. Increasingly, hospitals are placing older patients on ...

Emergency department observation units (EDOUs) have been shown to decrease length of stay and improve cost effectiveness. Yet, compared with noncancer patients, patients with cancer are placed in ...

Leaders at St. Luke’s University Health Network’s Monroe Campus failed to make sure a suicidal patient was properly watched, an investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of Health found. The report ...

Trained patient sitters are taking some of the burden off of licensed nurses, says Lauren Prepchuk, head of Patient Observation for Crothall Healthcare. Crothall, a support service provider, trains ...