More Than 190 Physicians Protest University Of Chicago Medical Center Plan To Cut General Medicine, ICU Beds

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice;  Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 16 Mar 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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More than 190 physicians at the University of Chicago Medical Center signed a letter to trustees and UCMC's CEO and Dean of Medicine James Madara protesting a plan to reduce the number of general medicine and ICU beds available to emergency department patients, the Wall Street Journal reports (Burton, Wall Street Journal, 3/12). UCMC, which estimates show admits a higher percentage of lower-income Medicaid patients than other hospitals in the Chicago area, had proposed a plan to eliminate 10 of the 31 beds in the ED and divert some patients to clinics or other hospitals (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/2). UCMC has since backed away from plans to cut the 10 ED beds, hospital administrators in recent weeks have planned to cut 24 beds of about 50 available to ED patients admitted for general medical care and nine of the 63 intensive-care beds to which the most acutely ill ED patients can be admitted.

According to the Journal, "The controversy over the prestigious hospital's unusual plan is being closely watched by emergency physicians across the U.S. as hospitals wrestle with rising costs and sometimes inadequate reimbursements from federal and state programs."

Fellows and resident physicians from numerous specialties at the hospital wrote in the letter that plans to eliminate beds "will lead to unsafe conditions" for patients. The letter states, "We feel these changes directly violate our oath as physicians to do no harm." Meanwhile, consultant Donald Yealy, vice chair of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said proposed bed eliminations are "a dangerous experiment on one of the most vulnerable populations." He and two other leaders in emergency medicine performed a consulting study and recommended that UCMC add ED beds and make other investments in the department.

Hospital officials responding to the physicians' letter said they welcome doctors' participation in trying to find "better ways to develop a safe and systematic approach to health care." Robert Mulliken, director of UCMC's ED, on Wednesday said that the proposed transitions "have no chance to incur patient safety issues." Hospital officials also acknowledged long waiting times in the ED and said that patients who would be diverted to other hospitals in many cases still would be seen by UCMC physicians. Administrators said that all planned cutbacks were partly economic moves, and that all potential actions currently are being re-examined because of opposition to the proposal (Wall Street Journal, 3/12).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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