Hospital Safety

Three hospitals in Ventura County rank among California’s 25 most heavily fined hospitals in Medicare programs that tie penalties to quality of care.

Hospitals that treat California's poorest patients, including local ones, are faring badly under the Affordable Care Act's drive to improve quality.

The maximum fine for health and safety violations at assisted-living centers would grow 100-fold under overhaul legislation approved by a key Senate committee on Thursday.

In a marked turnaround from a prior survey, more than 90 percent of California’s hospitals have provided key information sought by state and federal officials about their preparedness for earthquakes and other disasters.

There is no dispute here – the elderly are coming and in unprecedented numbers. Their arrival promises to have a lasting impact on California’s health system.

State regulators are fundamentally failing residents of assisted living homes for the elderly, leading to abuse, neglect and death, according to testimony on Tuesday at two legislative hearings.

When California health officials recently announced a 10 percent annual drop in hospital central line infections, they did not mention that they had found flaws in the facilities’ reporting of an illness that can kill up to one in four infected...

Deborah Schoch's reporting had a significant impact on the California Department of Public Health and its commitment to providing consumers with helpful information.

When I first heard that some surgeons don’t know how often their patients have major complications or die from a procedure, it was hard to believe.

For this study, Stanford professor Laurence Baker analyzed five years of statewide hospital (and some outpatient) discharge data from the&