Hospital keeps patient in vegetative state alive to ensure that its one year transplant survival rate does not get too low. An example of whenever you try to measure something, those being measured will try to game the system?
Where there is a KPI, there is alway someone devising a scheme on how that KPI can be met…
At one point a patient was protesting an early discharge post procedure from the institution where I work, for some good reasons, though, perhaps not a medical imperative. The surgeon had the gall to say to the patient that it was not good for their statistics to discharge a day later. The patient was offended, as was I, though it is true, bean counters love to brag on those numbers.
^Yeah, and then if it’s like my dad, he got readmitted for a second stay of several weeks. 
At that point, we hired a patient advocate who has helped oversee his care. Really sad that it’s come to that.
We spend far, far more on “end of life” care than any other country.
It’s unconscionable to me to keep someone subsisting in a PVS for any reason and this is about the worst of the worst reasons. Just another major reason why our entire "health"care system needs massive reform.
Side note - this story is one of the reasons why I think organ donation should be mandatory or at least an “opt out” rather than an “opt in” program. More donated organs, less time on the waiting list, generally better survival rates.
Lies, damned lies and statistics. They based their statistics on 6 patients!
@MaineLonghorn… Hired a patient advocate? How does one do that? Thought hospitals have patient advocates?
I’ve told this story before in Parents Supporting Parents, but after a stroke and some acute rehab, my mother was put in her senior living community’s “wellness center,” an intermediate care facility. My siblings and I wanted her to be discharged to her own apartment, instead of being in a hospital bed for months with nothing to do, because although she was very very slowly improving from their rehab, she was in her 90s and had dementia, and we thought her quality of life right then was most important.
They wouldn’t discharge her, and when we kept asking, they threatened if she was discharged against medical advice, Medicare would stop paying any of her health costs. We didn’t know what to do. She was languishing and languishing.
A hero on Parents Supporting Parents suggested calling the state’s Medicare Ombudsman. I did, and I told them the story. They said they’d pay an unannounced visit. By the greatest coincidence, the very day after the unannounced visit, the facility agreed to discharge my mother. I don’t remember who the hero was, but I thank her with all my heart.
@Knowstuff, the hospital social worker was not very helpful for my dad. And when they moved him from one room to another, a different person was assigned to him.
We were so appalled at his poor care (he literally almost died when they brushed him off at 3 am when he said he needed a doctor - turns out his hemoglobin had fallen to 5.7 and he required emergency surgery to tie off two bleeding ulcers), that we looked for help. We hired an RN who has been an angel. She coordinates my parents’ care - checks their meds (“Why is your mom on this and this? That doesn’t make sense.”), arranges excellent private caregivers, explains our options when doctors disagree (one told us Dad needed a pacemaker and another strongly disagreed), etc. She also gets my parents to doctors’ appointments when my sister can’t (Sis has two stressful jobs).
If I EVER have a loved one go in the hospital, I will hire an advocate. Yes, it has come to that. I haven’t even mentioned a tenth of what Dad went through.