Is This a Hospital or a Hotel?

[jsr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/sunday-review/is-this-a-hospital-or-a-hotel.html

September 21, 2013
Is This a Hospital or a Hotel?
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

As the new St. Joseph’s Hospital in Highland, Ill., prepared to open in August, its chief executive exulted, “You feel like you could be at the Marriott.”

In the $63 million community hospital, patients all enjoy private rooms, with couches, flat-screen TVs and views of nature. Its lobby features stone fireplaces and a waterfall.

Some hospitals in the United States, like Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, have long been associated with deluxe accommodations, and others have always had suites for V.I.P.’s. But today even many smaller hospitals often offer general amenities, like room service and nail salons, more often associated with hotels than health care.

In the current boom of hospital construction, private rooms have become the norm. And some health economists worry that the luxury surroundings are adding unneeded costs to the nation’s $2.7 trillion health care bill.


Baylor Medical Center at McKinney, Tex.


Mount Sinai Medical Center, NYC


St. Dominic Hospital, Jackson, Miss.


Henry Ford West Bloomfield, Mich.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. "Flat screen TVs" <---This phrase betrays the author's bias.

Would it have been okay of they, instead, bought used, flea market sourced, glass tube TVs? If, following the implication of using the term "flat screen screen tvs" what is the acceptable alternative.

Flat screen TVs are not a luxury. They are, in fact, the only TVs one can buy.

When I see that phrase used in the opening of a story such as this, I instantly get that the author is biased and the rest of the piece is likely flawed.

[dionysus]

9. when i was hospitalized last year... i had my own tv! cable even! such luxury.

[Posteritatis]

19. Yep. If I see fretting about flatscreens it's confirmation as to how out of touch the author is.

Complaining about those is proof that someone's living at least a solid decade out of sync with the rest of us, maybe more depending on the place.

[winstars]

24. WTF, did Jed Clampett write this? Do they have Cee-Ment Ponds" too??? LOL

[JaneyVee]

2. The rich get spa-like healthcare.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Actually, if you check in to the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, you'll get:

Koi pond in one of the nicely sky-lit open areas.

A lovely greeting, often a private room, and upon departure a folder with your paperwork and a CD with your paperwork, records, x-rays, etc. are offered to all guests.

I had to take my girlfriend there for a few days, all was covered by her school teacher insurance plan.

Built in 1934, designed by architect Edward Durell Stone.



For what we pay, all hospitals could be this nice. For everyone.

[oldhippie]

12. My wife spent a few days there for surgery in the 80's .......

It was certainly a totally different experience from the hospital in Salinas.

[Triana]

21. I've been in there...took Mom there when she was sick

last year. Definitely nice.

[cynannmarie]

25. this is my home town hospital

and it is truly beautiful. Though built in 1934, as stated, it is an amazingly timeless design, flooded with light everywhere, and beautiful forest views from most rooms. I visit every week to attend a cancer support group. Sometimes I just walk around the main floor, taking in the wonderful design and artwork, listening to the soothing sounds of the fountains in the koi pond. Our community is very fortunate to have such an exceptional facility.

[Link Speed]

3. I think that is great

Due to some instances of Bad Shit That Happens to You I have spent several cumulative years of my life in hospitals.

I can only look back and wish that friends and family could have hung out in places such as those.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Agree. My partner just spent a 8 days in for tumor on his pancreas.

Hospitals have definitely come a long way. They are not the dreary paces that I remember from visiting my grand parents.

Why not make it more comfortable for patients and guests? I enjoyed the wi-if and the option to stay over night on the fold down day bed.

Private rooms are not only nice but they keep disease from spreading.

Of course, it helps to have good insurance. My buddy was insurance-less and in a not so nice hospital - in a room with another patient with a potentially infectious disease.

We had to gown up to enter. I was like WTF what if they infect each other with their unknown bugs?

But that's a whole other disgusting story from our for profit health system.

[dionysus]

10. i hope he's ok!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Yes. Thanks!

They caught it early. It was the kind that got Steve Jobs. The "better" kind of pancreatic tumor called a nueroendocrine tumor. These tumors respond well to surgery but not chemo so if you wait, like Jobs did against (some?) doctors' advice, you are screwed if it gets aggressive.

It was major surgery cutting out the tail of his pancreas, the spleen (it shares some vessels and lymph nodes apparently) and the gal bladder for shits and giggles plus they threw in the hernia job that started the whole thing. But he is no worse for wear.

[dionysus]

15. good for you both! :) pancreatic stuff is usually ugly.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

20. Yes. His step dad was diagnosed with pancreatic the week we scheduled the surgery.

They gave him three months and he was gone in 5 weeks. Brutal. Not to mention all the explaining we had to do to his poor mother trying to convince her it wasn't the same.

On the lighter side, the boyfriend can name just about most (except for older exotic stuff) Grateful Dead songs when they come on Sirius. I cover up the screen and quiz him. He's not bad - not at two notes like me but pretty good. LOL. He says he even listens when I'm NOT in the car.

[meow2u3]

5. Let's just call them hospitels

[Democracyinkind]

26. Clever. nt

[Nine]

7. I wish nursing homes, where people have to actually LIVE, could be this nice. (nt)

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. agreed. a relative of mine lived in one for years. it was a bit drab

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. photo 3 - beautiful

[Lancero]

14. Am I the only one...

Who'd rather have the hospital spending more money on better equipment, instead of fireplaces, waterfalls, and nail salons?

[Downwinder]

17. The one here seems more concerned about the facilities than the care.

[hobbit709]

16. All that should certainly keep the costs down.

HA!

My only interest in a hospital is how fast can I get out of there.

[TwilightGardener]

18. St. Dominic--wow, that's really nice.

I've never been or worked in hospitals quite like these. Not sure what to think.

[liberal_at_heart]

22. I'm sure it's comforting, but I have to wonder if it just adds to the already way over priced

cost of health care.

[Posteritatis]

28. I'd actually be interested in what the breakdowns of the cost overall are like

While the one-time cost of building something like that's significant and there's maintenance over time, the look of the building doesn't factor that much into the seven or eight digits some medical equipment costs, to say nothing of the week or two's worth of pay that some hospitals charge for someone to give a patient a couple of aspirin.

The buildings on this side of the border aren't (overall) much different from the ones in the US - the children's hospital here in town is actually quite nice inside and out - but the cost of health care is entire orders of magnitudes lower. The price difference is definitely the industry, not the architecture, and it'd be worth a look to see just what eats what proportions of the cost in different places.

That said, I also wonder what a significantly more welcoming-looking hospital would do to the recuperative state of mind of patients, especially those who aren't just there for an outpatient procedure.

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that all the pictures of hospitals (or hotels) in that article are of public spaces in the building. I would go out on a limb and assume that the emergency department, operating theatres, etc., aren't going to be much less utilitarian than they would be in a traditional facility. That's a similar thing in the hospitals I've been to - the main lobbies are somewhere between "quite pleasant" and "nice for an institutional environment," while the places where Things Get Done are a lot more pragmatic.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. I remember the lobby of Asian Hospital in Manila - they have a grand piano and employ a classical

pianist in their grand Atrium which includes a local version of Starbucks and a Pancake House. Of course the palatial private hospitals I have seen in the Persian Gulf region such as in Al Khobar and in Dubai - they are at a scale way beyond that.

[kaiden]

27. My husband is in a Denver Hospital for

a Bone Marrow Transplant. He will be there a month or so and though the room is small, it is very nice. Hospitals are doing their best to be "all about the patient" and their families. This particular hospital now has a Ronald McDonald House attached to the NICU so mothers can be there 24 hours a day with the sick babies. With all the renovation going on, I would still like to see hospitals add a dark tavern (beer and wine only) with some ESPN-carrying televisions.