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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Hospitals

1. August 11, 2011 01:43 PM

   A Hospital Story Not to Write

   Doing the digging for real news

   By Trudy Lieberman

   My Association of Health Care Journalists colleague Charlie Ornstein likes to say that stories about hospital ribbon-cuttings, wings named for wealthy benefactors, and expensive new technology are what hospitals want journalists to report on. They are less eager to have us write about quality of care, or malpractice suits, or anything that disturbs the pretty pictures they want to paint....

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2. November 7, 2012 06:51 AM

   A Laurel to NPR, for giving hospitals a disaster exam

   Sandy exposes gaping holes in hospital safety plans

   By Trudy Lieberman

   NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue represent a tale of two New York City hospitals. Langone is a well-endowed brand-name facility eager to trumpet its state-of-the-art treatments. Bellevue is the country’s oldest public hospital, with a reputation for treating the city’s poor. Last week, though, they were united in disaster. Both offered a single tale of hundreds of patients—fragile...

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3. April 1, 2011 11:14 AM

   Another Cozy TV-Hospital Partnership

   Will the practice ever end?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Once more, a large hospital system has climbed in bed with a friendly TV station to promote high-end services, using a TV health reporter as its pitchman. The St. Louis Post Dispatch tells us that Barnes-Jewish Hospital and KSDK health reporter Kay Quinn have teamed up for a ten-month project that will feature weekly news segments with Quinn answering questions...

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4. October 12, 2011 11:11 AM

   CJR’s Assignment Desk, Part I

   Hospitals sell emergency room care

   By Trudy Lieberman

   This summer, Phil Galewitz of Kaiser Health News wrote an intriguing piece published in The Washington Post about hospitals that market their emergency room services to potential customers. The story narrative seemed out-of-whack with the conventional wisdom about hospital ERs. How many times during the run-up to health reform and during the Great Debate itself did politicos and advocates tell...

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5. January 20, 2012 11:50 AM

   In South Carolina, Another Hospital/Journo Alliance

   New twist, old problem

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Gary Schwitzer at Health News Review raised a question about journalistic ethics the other day when he took a whack at former newspaperman Ken Burger for returning to his old employer, Charleston, South Carolina’s The Post and Courier, to write a new column---this time sponsored by the Roper St. Francis Healthcare system. He will write about health care, which Burger...

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6. July 6, 2011 01:37 PM

   Keeping an Eye on Patient Safety, Part III

   What we can learn from the Brits

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Slowly the public is coming to realize that hospitals are not always safe places. Since the Institute of Medicine published its landmark study on unsafe medical care more than a decade ago, a grassroots patient safety movement has blossomed. This is the third in a series of posts that will examine what the media are doing to report on patient...

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7. February 29, 2012 01:27 PM

   More Dot-Connection Needed on ER Story

   What we're learning about hospitals, part two

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Kaiser Health News has become very good at reporting on the marketing secrets of the nation’s hospitals. I was intrigued by a story a couple weeks back by Phil Galewitz, which revealed that, increasingly, hospitals are making emergency-room patients pay upfront if they don’t have a true emergency. That means if you bring your screaming kid in for an ear...

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8. August 20, 2012 11:32 AM

   Profits vs. patients: The Tampa Bay Times complicates a story

   The truth in medical disputes can be hard to find

   By Trudy Lieberman

   The Tampa Bay Times, formerly known as The St. Petersburg Times, deserves a shout-out for jumping on the local angle of The New York Times’s two-part expose on HCA, the nation’s largest hospital chain—and advancing the story. And complicating it, too. Tampa’s contribution makes clear how important it is to report on the tensions between patient care and profits, and...

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9. February 22, 2012 02:22 PM

   What We’re Learning About Hospitals, Part One

   A laurel to National Journal

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Beware the Affordable Care Act! That was the message of a fine National Journal piece that thoroughly investigated the current economics of the nation’s hospitals. Stories about economics—especially those that go deep—are always tough to do, and reporter Margot Sanger-Katz put it all together, lacing her piece with plenty of warnings about what health reform will and won’t do. The...

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10. August 17, 2012 11:24 AM

    When hospital profits clash with patient care: an investigation

    The Times exposes questionable care at HCA hospitals

    By Trudy Lieberman

    This week The New York Times concluded a rare look at the inner workings of the country’s biggest for-profit hospital chain. The two-part expose is significant, coming at a time when places of healing are rapidly organizing themselves into big conglomerates much like the automakers did decades ago. The story raises significant questions. The economic ones: Is this good for...

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