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What Hospital Descriptions Of Ebola Patient Conditions Really Mean
Freedom Outpost
With all the attention being given to those who are, or might become, infected with the Ebola virus, it might be instructive if we try to get a better understanding of the terms being used by hospitals and others in describing the severity of the inflictions.
Right now, the condition of one of the two nurses from the Texas Presbyterian Health Hospital Dallas is described as being “fair,” while the other is diagnosed as “stable.” What’s the difference? One is being hospitalized at Emery University in Atlanta, while the other is at the National Institute of Health facility in Bethesda, MD. Which is farther along on the road to recovery? Does “fair” at one hospital mean the same as “fair” at the other. Finding an answer to these and other questions wasn’t quite as simple as one might have expected.
Generally speaking, the one-word descriptions we hear are not medical terms, but are opinions based on a doctor’s best judgment of the patient’s condition. Once charted, the doctor’s remarks are then relayed to hospital PR spokespersons whose job, of course, is to make the hospital look as good as possible. Most hospitals try to adhere to American Hospital Association (AHA) guidelines when describing a patient’s condition. These guidelines instruct hospital personnel to give out only one-word descriptions so as to not violate the patient’s
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPPA) right to privacy.
Listing in order from better to worse, the recommended descriptions, as excerpted from the AHA’s General Guide for the Release of Information on the Condition of Patients, are:
Reposted with permission
