Learning how to locate and use patient discharge data will make your reporting stronger and provide you with objective evidence for evaluating hospitals' claims. Such data can also lead to new story threads. Here's a quick-start guide.
Community & Public Health
A recent Sac Bee investigation revealed disturbingly high staff turnover rates at a number of California nursing homes. You can discover similar trends by learning how to navigate the data in California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development and similar agencies nationwide.
Every time someone famous dies after a medical error, hopes rise that we will see a meaningful response that will improve patient safety conditions. Joan Rivers' death has, in an incredibly quick time frame, led to some significant consequences for those involved.
In California, the range of physician performance is surprisingly wide, according to a recent survey that ranked groups on a 100-point scale. More than 40 physician groups scored below 60. Where might we find insights into how to help these low-performers improve?
For more than a year, Baltimore Sun reporter Andrea K. McDaniels and photographer Lloyd Fox have examined the unseen impact of violence — on children, caregivers and victims’ relatives.
Researchers and advocates for underserved, hard-to-reach patient groups are betting that health programs on mobile phones will soon usher in major advances in the treatment of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.
The Michael Brown case has come to symbolize popular disillusionment with finding justice, but it's also about quality-of-life issues and resources for poor residents in places like Ferguson, a majority black suburban city where poverty is prevalent.
Researchers found that California diabetics who live in low-income neighborhoods are up to 10 times more likely to lose a toe, foot or leg than patients who live in affluent areas. Early diagnosis and proper treatment can prevent many of these amputations, researchers said.
Southern California's Orange County has a reputation as an affluent playground, making the county's food insecurity stats all the more surprising. That kind of juxtaposition between a locale's perception and reality can make for powerful stories that grab audiences and start conversations.
Prescription painkillers like OxyContin have flooded the market. They're incredibly addictive, and once people are hooked, the habit gets expensive. More and more are turning to the cheaper alternative, heroin. And now, more people die every year from accidental opioid (painkillers and heroin) overd