Published on June 16, 2012 at 8:04 AM
Reuters: Typical Hospital Noises May Disrupt Sleep
Certain hospital sounds, such as electronic alarms, telephones and conversations, can wake people up even at relatively low levels, according to a new study [in the Annals of Internal Medicine]. The results point to ways hospitals can focus on mitigating the most disruptive noises, researchers said. … Nighttime noises are one of the chief complaints among patients who are surveyed about their time in the hospital (Grens, 6/11).
Medscape: Least Serious ED Trips Partly Attributed To Access Hassles
American adults up to age 64 years who visit a hospital emergency department (ED) without being admitted afterward are more likely to cite a lack of access to other providers than the severity of their condition as the reason for the trip, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. These findings give further credence to the widely embraced notion that extended office hours for physicians, urgent-care centers, and retail clinics can eliminate many costly trips to the ED (Lowes, 6/13).
MedPage Today: Web Effort Helps Control Heart Risk Factors
An Internet-based system to help patients manage vascular risk factors was better than usual care alone, a randomized trial showed. In the unadjusted analysis, those using the nurse-led system combined with usual care had a 14% decline in Framingham heart risk scores, compared with those in the usual care arm, according to Frank Visseren, MD, PhD, of University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and colleagues [in BMJ] (Smith, 6/14).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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