| February 15th, 2007 |
An article in the front page times details the myriad problems with Kaiser's over-hyped and under-performing EMR. There have been many incidents putting patients at risk, including an infant in the NICU, and I hope this article helps patients understand why the technology issues are directly relevant to them.
However, what did the TV news report this morning? They parroted a Kaiser press release about their intention to launch the quote unquote "BIGGEST" health care study on diet and genetics. Don't the TV news editors even GLANCE at what's in the newspapers? This BIGGEST member survey is blatantly timed to distract people from and/or preempt the L.A. Times article. What a coup for the Kaiser PR people who had a hotline to the ABC news room, where the same pseudo-story about Kaiser's BIGGEST member survey has mentioned three times so far this morning, while the revelations of the L.A. Times article have not been mentioned at all.
Update: Kaiser's decoy story has now been added to the rolling headlines on the bottom of the screen! This is usually reserved important news alerts that need to continue to be communicated even when the reporters are talking about something else.
Once again Kaiser has chosen to exercise low PR tactics instead of addressing the problems. And once again the mainstream media has gone slithering after the money instead of bothering with the hassle of investigative reporting.
Kaiser must not be allowed to get away with putting PR before patients. To bring home how important it is to not let Kaiser substitute "thriviness" for problem-solving: I found out this morning that the Roseville cancer patient mentioned in my previous post DIED this morning. Even though the patient could eat, Kaiser withheld all medication except for morphine. Kaiser representatives claimed that the patient didn't need medication (for diabetes and a heart condition) because "his brain would take over". Two family members with M.D.s tried to intervene. One was allowed to speak to the attending physician, but no one was allowed to see the medical records.
The saddest part of all this is that Kaiser sowed dissension in the family by asserting that if the family moved the patient to another hospital, they would be stuck with a bill they could never pay off. Who knows what options the family would have found if they looked, but while they were trying to figure everything out, the patient died.
In other news, Kaiser lost another laptop containing the medical information of as many as 22,000 people. Why isn't this being reported instead of Kaiser's strategic deployment of the word "BIGGEST"?
For People Leaving Comments: An emergency came up, and it's hard for me to get to a computer to approve the comments. Please do leave your comments - I care about them a lot, and I think it's important for Kaiser to hear a community of voices. I will get to the comments as quickly as I can, and I will reply at some point during the day.
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