Borough Park, NY – Giant aquariums now soothe pediatric patients at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. It has added welcome signs in 10 languages, a state-of-the-art cardiac operating room and programs to keep chronically ill adults safely at home. But as Pamela S. Brier, the chief executive, was walking to the main entrance last week, she spotted a rain-soaked plastic bag on the front steps.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Millions of dollars in revenue now depend on improving patients’ perceptions of the hospital. “I can’t stand it,” Ms. Brier muttered, and she darted over, her cream chiffon dress fluttering, to scoop up the litter herself.
It was the first Monday in June, counting down to a United States Supreme Court decision that could transform the landscape of American health care. But like hospitals across the country, Maimonides is not waiting around for the verdict.
Win, lose or draw in court, administrators said, the policies driving the federal health care law are already embedded in big cuts and new payment formulas that hospitals ignore at their peril. And even if the law is repealed after the next election, the economic pressure to care differently for more people at lower cost is irreversible.
“If the Supreme Court overturns this law – I pray it won’t – the world will go on changing,” Ms. Brier said. “In some ways, we’ve changed ahead of it.” But she added, “Trying to manage all these different aspects of the health care system as they are changing does make you crazy.”
The century-old hospital, at the Borough Park crossroads of Hasidic, Asian, Caribbean and Hispanic neighborhoods, is often cited by state regulators as an example of good management and community service.
It has been in the black since 1996, after Ms. Brier took charge of operations, and has increased patient volume every year while achieving some of the nation’s best clinical outcomes, including exceptionally low mortality rates for pneumonia, heart failure and heart attacks.
Yet even in a city with notoriously cranky consumers and cramped spaces, Maimonides’s patient satisfaction scores are abysmal – especially in its maternity units, which deliver 8,000 babies a year. And starting next year, under “value-based purchasing” contracts mandated by the health care law and already entrenched in Medicaid and Medicare rules, failure to improve the satisfaction of surveyed patients will cost hospitals.
Read full article at New York Times
I WAS A CARDIAC PATIENT 2 WEEKS AGO.
it was a horror, it is a sin to have a hospital operating as it does.
The unions must be broken. the hospital should close down and reopen under a entirely new management. The aids, the support staff was rediculous rude stupid uncaring, NO NOT ALL, BUT MAJORITY IS.
Every employee should go through a rigorous training on how to conduct themselfs with the world.
The hospital is NOT THEIR HOME.One night they had a PARTY WITH loud nurses party as if the hospital was a irish bar at happy hour.
There was no professionalism there ….
at all!
The staff was basically more interested in what THEY WANTED and not the patients needs.
YES IT IS A HOSPITAL WITH AN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT…AND SO WHAT…..YES THEY HELPED ME UNTIL THEY DIDNT HELP ME…AND SO….?
Two times I started to rip off the IVs and wanted to get out of there.
I eventually transferred to another hospital.
Then the patient laison tried to intimidate me to sign a document donating my organs when i strongly told him ORTHODOX JEWS DO NOT DONATE ORGANS.
There is no management, no code of conduct at all in Maimonides.
Where do I start…. MMC is run by a mafia.. Why they get away with it is simple, kickbacks to various organizations…. I won’t name them because it might be loshon hora. All we need to understand is; its up to us to boycott the hospital and things will improve.
I was a patient in the cardiac ward on the second floor, and their service was exemplary, from the doctors to the cleaning staff. Out of the dozens of people I came in contact with over a two weeks stay, I encountered on one nurse and one aide who left a lot to be desired. Otherwise, they were absolutely wonderful. We should hopefully not require their care, but if yes, their cardiac ward is one of the most exemplary in the country!
Maimonides – keep up the good work, at least in the cardiac ward!
Their birthing center is b”h pretty good.
I was recently in their ER; I am grateful for the oxygen they administered — they took over after EMS brought me in — and I wished I could’ve been in a different ER. I was treated so inhumanely, it was truly a shame.
I want to report the inhumane experience to where my voice will be heard, so if anyone knows where, please let me know.
Maimonides really could have a terrific reputation, if only they’d teach their staff- or only hire such staff- that know how to treat patients with dignity and respect. I have gotten dignity in respect in other hospitals, but never in Maimonides.
It’s too bad they are the closest one to my home, so EMS is required to transport me to the nearest hospital.
The mistreatment of patients seems to be systemic at Maimonides. What a shame. I believe they CAN clean up their act, if they choose to. I just don’t know if they have any incentive to do so at this time.
yeah i have been a cardiac pt there as well basically from what it seems is that their new building/section has great service otherwise their service and personell especially in the emrgency room is a disgrace i wish someone wud do something about it
I’m glad Ms brier is concerned about plastic bags on the floor and aquariums . what about good patient care MMC is a horrible place and should lose its license to provide medical care!
the better nurses get higher pay,at other hospitals. these nurses are happy for just any job, and they dont care about the patients. they will wake you up at 3 am to sponge bathe you, delay your meds/or give early because it’s just not convenient on their schedule. and your nurse is always on a break and someone else is just covering and is busy…..
#1 0 Why are you judging! This has nothing to do with frumkeit of people going to irish bars. #1 was stating that nurses shouldnt be acting like it was a party LIKE it was an Irish bar. If people want to have a party by an actual bar not the hospital – so be it.