Man with Frequent CHF Readmissions Found To Be Half Sponge.

Birmingham, AL --  With seventeen readmissions for congestive heart failure in the last year, 58 year-old Kevin Spencer finally got the answer he was looking for.  Doctors at Baptist Hospital diagnosed him as being half sponge after ruling out all possible explanations for his recurrent CHF exacerbations.CHFer found to be half spongeCongestive heart failure is a leading cause of hospitalization in the United States.   Hospitals risk losing millions of dollars through complicated formulas when CHF patients are readmitted within 30 days of discharge.  To reduce the risk of Medicare penalties, Baptist hospital re-engineered their hospital discharge last year, but Kevin kept coming back."We tried everything to keep Mr. Spencer out of the hospital, but nothing worked," said Dr.  Jason Harvey, a hospitalist who has copied and pasted at least four of his H&Ps. "The last time I discharged Kevin, I wrote orders that planned out his life for him, right down to the last minute to try and prevent him from getting readmitted and look where all that time and effort got us."The sponge diagnosis, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine last month, was stumbled upon by a third year medical student who quipped the possibility while being pimped on the causes of CHF exacerbations during morning report."Everyone laughed at first, but then we all thought he was brilliant.  We ordered a stat skin punch biopsy on a Friday evening and we were all shocked whe...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Source Type: blogs