ABC News: Jane Fonda Protesting War Again

ABC News: Jane Fonda Protesting War Again: "Fonda was on CBS' 'Late Show with David Letterman' Wednesday night and Letterman asked how she feels about the war in Iraq. Fonda got a big hand from Letterman's audience when she said, 'I think the war is wrong. I think it's a mistake and I think we that should get out.'

Letterman had just held up the infamous photo of Fonda sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. Fonda, who is promoting her autobiography, 'My Life So Far,' said she is the 'lightning rod' for the still open wounds of the Vietnam war and she feels 'sad about that.'"



My Life So Far
by Jane Fonda
Amazon

Web site lets patients shop around for hospitals

People now can compare the quality of care at more than 4,200 hospitals nationwide through a new government Web site.

HospitalCompare.hhs.gov provides side-by-side, hospital-versus-hospital comparisons on 17 measures: eight related to heart-attack care, four to care for heart failure and five related to pneumonia care.

For instance, the Web site, which launched Friday, shows the percentage of a hospital‘s heart-attack patients who, among other treatments, receive aspirin or beta-blockers on arrival and discharge. It also gives the percentage of heart-attack patients who get a thrombolytic agent--a drug to treat blood clots--within 30 minutes of arrival.

For heart-failure patients, the site details, among other things, the percentage who receive an ACE inhibitor--a medicine frequently used to treat heart failure--and the percentage of those who get instructions to help manage their conditions when they‘re discharged.

Hospital accrediting agencies use such indicators to determine whether a hospital is delivering good basic practice. They add up to an impression that‘s easily compared with those of other hospitals.