There are hundreds of hospitals who serve "an older demographic" with much much higher ratings than TVRH. I don't know what their problem is but it is not the age of the patients.

Excellent point. :thumbup:

One can't help but wonder, if it's analogous to what I believe is the underlying reason for the subpar conditions of a lot of the golf courses...i.e."captive audience syndrome?" :shrug:

According to a CBS News report on the quality of Health care from 2016, Florida was in the bottom ten of the country. I think that the licensing requirements for physicians should be raised. I know of one who practices here who lost her license in another state for drug addiction and one who has been jailed for failure to pay child support.

Keep in mind that The Villages has nothing to do with running TVRH. It just owns the building.

Here is the CBS report putting Florida in the bottom ten of the 48.

Best and worst states for health care - CBS News

Thank you for clearing that up. I hate to have anything besmirch my dear TV.

However, ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem.

We......

Unless, of course, you never plan to get sick.

I am trying to think of a hospital in this country, on this planet that would have a higher percentage of geriatric patients. We are the largest community like us in this country and arguably the world.

Percentage, no. Total count, yes. There are city hospitals with geriatric wards that are larger than the inpatient ward at TVH. TVH has less than 300 beds to accommodate a population of over 100,000 senior citizens, AND tens of thousands of non-seniors who don't even live in The Villages, but rather, in homes surrounding it. Yes there are other emergency centers and inpatient hospitals within 30 miles, but anyone who lives less than half that distance, will likely want their emergency treated at the closest place, if it's truly an emergency. If that emergency results in needing to be admitted to inpatient, that hospital needs to be capable of performing competently and efficiently.

Apparently, TVH is not capable of performing efficiently and competently. I don't know about you, but I don't feel "performing competently and efficiently" should be considered a very high standard to meet.

Or too many hangnails and toothaches. Because that is what slows the ER.

I love it here, but it is not perfect. Florida, in my opinion, does not have excellent health care, I think of places like Boston, Baltimore, Houston and LA as places where excellent health care in available and Ohio which has Cincinnati Childrens, third best in pediatrics and Cleveland Clinic for years the best heart hospital nationally.

There is little any of us can do, and I understand your concern. We go back to Cincinnati for our oncologist visits . There are many that say I am wrong, but Florida is not a mecca of fine health care. Even Shands is not in the top ten or near it.

Access Denied

This is true. And we, the people who pay for this medical service (whether through paying bills sent to us or taxes that ultimately end up covering our Medicare) have the power to change that. We can change it with our votes, we can change it with our active participation in municipal meetings, we can change it with grass roots campaigns and activism in encouraging and incentivizing quality care to congregate near us.

We can change it with donations and grants and fundraising activities as needed, if we are financially able to do so. There are SO many things we CAN do, to make our little speck on the map "better," even if not "good."

Some of the wealthiest, most influential politicians live in, and visit, and come to address Villagers every year, especially during election time. These are the prime opportunities to tell them that we need better quality health care, and challenge them to get it done.

Obviously it isn't a matter of lack of funding. If it were, all of the hospitals would be suffering from quality health care. And they're not. Florida is, and the Villages in particular is. We have a lot of very affluent people living in the Villages. And many of them are politically connected. Do you go golfing with any of them? Play bridge with any of them? Sleep with any of them? Dance, have coffee, do woodworking, bicycle, grocery shop - anything? Do you have an opportunity to say "hey Susie Bigbucks, I see you got another boob job. Beautiful job by the way, they're perky as a teenager. But what would happen if that saline implant ruptured and you needed to go to the emergency room? You know the ER closest to you sucks even harder than that lipo machine that trimmed your hips down last year. Maybe you could tell your husband to call his Doctor pal up and see if maybe Dr. Buttslim could do a little consulting at TVH once a month. Y'know, just in case."

Excellent suggestions!

We have so many wealthy people that pass away here in the villages after spending years enjoying this wonderful place only to leave large portions of their money to their church. I find that selfish and wasteful. Put that money to good use in hospitals and the police force.

At a minimum, start treating/taxing those churches that get involved in 'P' as the entity they really are...thinly disguised PAC's. :ho:

I wasn't at the meeting with the hospital execs but didn't see in published reports that anybody asked not why the rating is so low, but why it went down from 3 to 2 to 1? What changed? The percentage of geriatrics and Medicare patients has remained thee same, as has the total bed count.

It appears to me that most of the people complaining about our hospital do not yet live here and probably have not had any experience with our hospital. I have a suggestion for you, wait until you are here and if you die at the hospital you can always say "I told you so".

Because people keep harping on percentages.

The bedcount is still under 300. The NUMBER of geriatrics and Medicare patients has gone up. And that doesn't even really matter, because geriatrics and Medicare patients aren't the only people who ever need hospital beds.

The overall population has increased, but the bed numbers and staff count has remained unchanged.

Math coming up:

You got 100,000 people. 70% of them are geriatrics. That's 70,000 people. Your hospital is built and staffed to accommodate 70,000 people, and therefore is accommodating 70% of the population.

Fast forward 5 years, you now have 200,000 people. 70% of them are geriatrics. The total population count of geriatrics is now 140,000 people. Your hospital is built to accommodate 70,000 people. That's somewhere around 38% of the total population (which is 200,000 people)

You've gone from a hospital that can handle the majority of the population, to a hospital that can't even handle half the population, within a 5-year period. The 70% is based on the population that existed when the hospital was built.

Percentages mean nothing when you don't put them in context.

It appears to me that your callous dismissal of people who are aging and going into the period of their lives where they are MOST LIKELY to need a hospital, is callous, and dismissive.

People look for relative safety when they pack up and move to a whole other way of life. We're not looking for health spas where our feet get rubbed by half-naked virginal boys carrying pitchers of warmed scented oils. We're looking for competent, efficient life-saving and disease-preventing health care.

It helps to know what we're moving into, before we actually move there. We COULD pick anywhere in the country to choose from, so when we do pick the Villages, we want to know that we made the right choice.

Judging from the board of health, the hospital organizations that actually know about this stuff, the state of Florida's health department, and the Villages residents, this hospital is remarkably horrible.

Since The Villages grows by about 5000 people per year, and has been growing at that rate for several years, the population will not double in 5 years. The current population of The Villages is closer to 120,000. The hospital also supports the surrounding areas. I am not sure how many additional people that is. Regardless, the population will not double in 5 years. The new facilities being built in Brownwood will shoulder some of the burden. Do you actually live here?

As Jazuela says, we could pick to live anywhere in the country, or also anywhere in the world. I have picked TV and bringing my family member with me. As we prepare for our increasingly vulnerable years, we want to know what is facing us should we need help with our health. This is not a theoretical exercise, or a shaming exercise. It is a true concern.

The hospital building is owned by the developer and leased to a hospital corporation. The second hospital corporation that leased it. This one came in 2013. The CDD does not have a drop of influence on how the hospital is run. Florida in general is in the bottom ten of all of the states in excellence in health care. My husband had surgery a month ago done by a specialist in The Villages Health Care System which is owned and run by the developer. The surgery was not done at TVRH, it was done at Advent Hospital in Ocala. The Villages Health Care system is a group of buildings that house a number of PCP's and PA's and surgeons and specialists and it was put in place to help us I think. AND of course it makes money. I was hospitalized in critical care for eight days at TVRH and I could not have asked for better care. Every single nurse and tech treated me as if I was their loved mother.

Jazuela. I think you should wait to move here and live here for awhile until you totally understand how this place works and doesn't work. You cannot depend on posters on a public forum for accuracy or depth of understanding. Patience, grasshopper.

Who vilified The Villages?

Yes, and there are urgent care units sprinkled in TV, which are like walk-in clinics from what I understand. Very happy to have those!

Callous Dismissal --- not so, just totally fed up with people who have never lived here or had to use the hospital assuming it is not up to standard. My husband has had two cancer surgeries here, one was an extremely rare cancer which was picked up right here in this "horrible" hospital and he is alive and well. Plus he had a serious head injury which was dealt with immediately through the ER with excellent results. I have had two major surgeries here (heart and internal) with excellent results. There are literally hundreds of us walking around who have survived this hospital. We are both from Boston and have also had surgeries in Beth Israel and the Baptist so we do have something to compare.

Do you really think 20+thousand people would chose to live here if the medical facilities were so bad? We are surrounded with excellent hospitals, i.e. Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Gainesville ......... take your pick.

I am going to be extremely rude and suggest if this subject bothers you this much, this is really not where you want to live.:):):)

It was a hypothetical, because I don't know the actual numbers. Apply the actual numbers and the result is equally valid. There are more people now than there were when the hospital was built. The hospital was built to accommodate the total count of people living in the area, at that point in time. Applying simple math tells me that however many more people need to be included in "the number of people accommodated by this hospital" needs to be increased, while the actual "number of people who CAN be accommodated by this hospital" has remained relatively stable.

As such - the hospital can no longer sustain the population, because there are more people needing to be sustained than when it was built.

I don't care who owns it, or who occupies it. It is the local hospital. I'll be living closer to that hospital than any other hospital, and if I should happen to need emergency service (not urgent care), that would be the quickest ambulance trip.

Regardless of who owns it, its ratings are abysmal. Regardless of who runs it, its ratings are abysmal. Regardless of whether I live near it or not, its ratings are abysmal. I'm not talking about posts I read on the internet. I'm talking about actual facts, according to actual government and medical organization checks and balances and data provided by that actual hospital to those organizations that exist to come up with these statistics.

I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand.

A number of off topic and personally directed posts have been removed. Again, please stay on the topic of the ER and avoid making statements directed at other members.

Moderator

I understand it, but some problems cannot be solved easily or immediately and sometimes not at all.. Sometimes where you choose to live has almost everything you want and misses some important things. Life is a tradeoff and a gamble.

///responded to someone whose post was deleted.

I don't think using the size of the hospital when it was built in 2002 is a way to estimate how well it covers the service needs of the Villages and the surrounding area today.

First of all there have been a number of expansions to the hospital, the last was an increased number of ER rooms and previous to that rooms were added to the hospital itself. It is now about three times the size it was in 2002.

Both an ER and a "bedless"hospital are being added to Brownwood. Each of these will reduce some of the load on the Villages Hospital.

Central Florida Health has said it has enough land in the Brownwood area to build another hospital though they have not made any commitments to yet.

A number of emergent care facilities and an Emergency Room (in Summerfield) have been added to the Villages area since 2002.

A number of the medical practices in the area have added same day appointments for various illnesses and medical problems since he hospital was built.

So medical facilities have been being added over time to keep up with the growth of the Villages and the surrounding area.

One of the issues with adding medical facilities like hospitals and emergency rooms is that there is a political component to it (not just here but anywhere). Other medical facilities in the area will claim that they are already serving the needs of the area and adding a new one might impact the services they provide... which can prevent a new facility from getting the certificates and licenses needed even if the have all the financial backing needed to go ahead.

I couldn't...agree more. :thumbup: