Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing

Bad food is the least of their worries: hospital patients often feel neglected, Weinberg says, and complain that they spend hours without proper medical attention from nurses. In this thorough investigation into how the nursing profession has changed radically over the last decade, she cites hospital consolidation and 1997's Balanced Budget Act, which brought cuts to Medicare payments and severely affected hospitals' bottom line, as keys to the problem. The Brandeis University research associate uses the merger of Boston's prestigious Beth Israel Hospital with New England Deaconess as an example of how fiscal problems and consolidation are responsible for the growing shortage of nurses and rampant dissatisfaction in the field. Before the merger, Beth Israel was famous for its egalitarian policies, while the well-respected New England Deaconess was known for its""restructuring of hospital care"" in the name of cost efficiency. The different philosophies behind nursing and the ensuing political struggles involved with the marriage of individual institutions contributed heavily to the drop in nurse retention and, ultimately, to a decline in patient care. Weinberg's analysis will be important to medical professionals and hospital administrators, but outsiders may find it a bit academic and dry.