VA hospitals get high marks

Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2007 - Betsy McCaughey wrote,

THE TYPICAL hospital patient is given the wrong medication or the wrong dose at last once a day, according to the Institute of Medicine, a research organization that advises Congress. The good news is that these mistakes are less likely to happen at a hospital run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Surprised? Recent news accounts about the shameful conditions at Walter Reed Amy Medical Center — a hospital unaffiliated with the Department of Veterans Afairs — might lead you to believe that VA hospitals are a national embarrassment. That may have been true at one time. But VA hospitals have undergone a remarkable turnaround in the last decade and, on average, earn higher marks for patient safety and quality of care than most other hospitals in the United States. Continued...

Betsy McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (hospitalinfection.org).