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Article: Hospitals seeing increase in number of severely obese patients, requiring 'super-sized' products.(WORTH READING)
- Article from:
- Healthcare Strategic Management
- Article date:
- March 1, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 HCPro, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Severely obese patients are showing up in emergency rooms and at admissions desks at an ever-increasing rate, and the result is a heavier burden on materials management.
Sixty-four percent of U.S. hospitals polled in a recent survey reported an increase in admissions of seriously overweight, or bariatric, patients, and they have had to purchase additional furniture, lifting and transfer equipment and surgical supplies, to the tune of $43,000 per hospital, on average.
And that does not include the cost of building renovations to accommodate larger equipment (average $22,000 per hospital in 2004) or the cost of training staff to transport and treat obese ...