NOTES ON NURSING

Union Army’s Top Nurses Were Nuns   This insight honors the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.    The Daughters of Charity at their provincial house in Emmitsburg, Md., could hear the cannons of Pickett’s Charge 10 miles off. They helped their chaplain pack a wagon with medical supplies and, when the cannons were silenced, a dozen sisters rode with him to tend to the wounded.

HEALTH CARE NEWS

Hospitals Reward CEOs for Profit Over Quality    Across the nation, boards at nonprofit hospitals such as Valley are often paying bosses much more for boosting volume rather than delivering value, according to interviews with compensation consultants and an examination of CEOs’ employment contracts and bonus packages.

Health Reform Brings Heavy Fines for Hospitals with High Readmissions  If you look at the difference between the hospitals with the highest and lowest readmission rates, you can conclude that around 20 percent of readmissions should be avoidable.

A Doctor Guilty of Fraud Has Great Patient Satisfaction Scores   They found that patient satisfaction did not correlate at all with the rates of hospital compliance with SCIP process measures nor the opinions of employees about the culture of the institution for half the categories questioned.

LABOR UPDATES

“Perfect Storm” of Fire Kills 19 Firefighters in AZ    Nineteen elite firefighters were killed in a raging Arizona wildfire stoked by record heat and high winds, marking the greatest loss of life among firefighters from a single U.S. wildland blaze in 80 years.

Fly the Flag and the Union Label This July 4th   Beyond our outdoor feast supplies, there are some other July 4th necessities that carry a union label.