Part II

Hospital Safety Record

UT Medical Center Hospital

LindaMarie Rouillard, UT-AAUP Executive Board

Donald K. Wedding, UT-AAUP Executive Board

In our UT-AAUP newsletter #94, we reported the safety record rating of the UT Medical Center hospital as published in the August 2012 issue of Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports also provides additional details on-line.

According to the detailed on-line report of Consumer Reports, the UT Medical Center has the worst possible ratings for SURGICAL-SITE infection, OVERUSE of ABDOMINAL SCANS, and poor communications ABOUT DRUGS. The Medical Center has a high rate of re-admissions and rates poorly in communications about discharge instructions. Additionally, it is described as having a rate of complications worse than the national average.

Ohio does not currently report bloodstream-infection rates to the public. Only surgical-site infections are reported. According to Consumer Reports, for the period July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the UT Medical Center hospital reported 9 surgical-site infections among patients in 299 surgical procedures. This is 130% worse than the national statistics for the types of surgical procedures reported by the hospital. Of the 107 rated hospitals in Ohio the UT Medical Center is among the bottom 6 having the worst rate of reported infections.

The re-admission rates for the UT Medical Center hospital are also high. According to Consumer Reports on-line, heart-attack patients have a 22% chance of needing to return to the hospital within 30 days. Heart failure patients have a 24% chance of requiring re-admission within 30 days. Pneumonia patients have a 19% chance of being re-admitted to the hospital after 30 days.

This lowly rated hospital is also a money sinkhole carried by the academic enterprise. As stated by the hospital director, Scott Scarborough, to the UT auditors - "The major risks for the university pertain to hospital operations."  

The primary reserve ratio of the hospital was lower than that of the University of Toledo at the time of the 2006 merger. The merger has provided the hospital with a flow of cash and resources from the academic enterprise at the UT Bancroft campus. None of this can be blamed on the physicians, nurses, or staff. The safety problems at the UT Medical Center hospital are the fault of the hospital management appointed by the Lloyd Jacobs Administration. The buck stops with President Lloyd Jacobs and particularly with the UT Board of Trustees which has a fiduciary responsibility to the State of Ohio and its tax payers.