Hospitals Install High-Tech Frills to Meet Competition

In-room wi-fi. CD players. E-mail access. Digital TV. Business centers. Concierge service. Video games.

If these sound like high-end features of a posh hotel, think again: They’re some of the creature-comfort gizmos being offered at local medical centers.

As the troubled healthcare industry faces lawsuits, rising expenses and demands for additional nurses, an increasing number of local hospitals have turned to technology to make patients more comfortable.

Changes in the healthcare industry have made it possible for patients to choose where they will go for medical care and, critics say, that has forced hospitals to adopt sometimes elaborate and expensive perks in an effort to drum up business.

“People are starting to compete for these patients. It’s not just doctor-driven anymore,” said Nan Andrews Amish, a management consultant and economist for the healthcare industry. “They found the things that they can do and people are willing to spend extra for that.”

Consider Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Warren Tetz, senior vice president for operations, said that when officials began crafting plans for a new two-story patient care tower which will open next year, in-room technology was a major priority they made sure each room had Internet and e-mail access.

“We added a small desk and computer in every patient room that can be used,” Tetz said.

He explained it’s a matter of following what patients and their families want. And the fact is, round-the-clock access to e-mail and Internet have become must-haves even when recuperating from gall bladder surgery or after delivering a baby.

“It gives them that comfort to not have to go somewhere else,” he said. “More and more people are turning to the Internet.”

Bedside computers

Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia has Pyxis PatientStation, a bedside computer system that gives patients access to everything from medical charts and discharge instructions to on-demand movies, radio and videogames, not to mention e-mail and Internet access.

Developed by San Diego-based Cardinal Health and installed three years ago, PatientStation is essentially a large, touch screen computer installed near a patient’s bed. A monitor is attached to an arm-like apparatus that can be positioned around the room. Each patient is provided a pair of headphones by the hospital’s concierge, who also walks them through how to operate the computer.

Bhavna Mistry, a spokeswoman for Henry Mayo, said the terminals help patients feel like they’re not cut off from the rest of the world just because they’re in the hospital.

“It allows patients to view television that they want to view,” said Mistry, who could not reveal the cost of the machines. “It’s just comforting for them to have a piece of technology near them,” she said.

Money well spent?

The boost in tech comforts comes as traditional hospitals grapple with a gauntlet of industry issues, from demands for higher nurse-to-patient ratios to confusing government and insurance reimbursement procedures to a swelling number of lawsuits.

Perhaps most significantly, hospitals are also facing escalating competition from cheaper outpatient clinics that specialize in elective or simple medical procedures. The clinics are usually smaller and can often have fewer staffers and less equipment, which results in lower costs and higher efficiency.

And because patients can shop around, the centers are forced to market themselves accordingly, with some offering valet parking and spa-like services.

Amish said that has forced traditional hospitals to boost extra services to keep up.

“As more people have health savings accounts and people have less full insurance, people are picking and choosing where they go,” she said.

That idea of consumer-based medical care has some worried that too much cash is going toward frills at hospitals.

Jack Reichenthal, a researcher with Hospital CEO Forum, a think-tank that recently released a study called the “Five Most Dangerous Trends Facing Hospitals,” contends the money could be far better invested in hiring more nurses and improving hospital infrastructure.

The study found that 35 percent of patients indicated that they would not return to the same hospital and predicted a shortage of as many as 200,000 hospital beds nationally by 2012, the result of more medical facilities closing in coming years. With those kinds of issues, Reichenthal reasoned that creature comforts are merely putting window dressing on a major crisis.

“We’re finding a lot of the things in patient rooms are flawed, he said. “The industry is asking the wrong question.”

Hospital officials, however, are quick to point out that the creature-comfort technology isn’t just a fa