In a logically designed drug safety system, data from new studies would automatically be pooled so that as more and more patients take a drug, researchers can see potential harms across all the data at one time, rather than looking at individual research studies in isolation. Alas, that is not our world. A new proposal….
Continue ReadingArchives for November 2009
A Quick Way to Check the Safety of a Hospital or Nursing Home
Patients who want to probe beyond the glossy pamphlets and flashy web sites of a hospital or nursing home to see what the real scoop is on the safety track record have one simple way to get the official government inspection report: Ask for it. You have a legal right to a copy. The report….
Continue ReadingConsumers Union Hosts Patient Safety Forum in Washington
On November 17, 2009 in Washington, D.C., Consumers Union hosted a forum of patient activists, advocates, doctors, nurses and others who want to reform the dangerous safety practices in the U.S. medical industry. (I attended as a medical malpractice attorney and patient safety advocate.) You can watch a webcast of the forum here. The forum….
Continue ReadingMammograms: Understanding the Risks and Benefits
The new breast cancer screening guidelines demonstrate yet again why savvy patients need to understand the numbers behind risk/benefit studies before making the very personal decision about whether and how often to get a cancer screening test. The recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women hold off on routine mammograms until age….
Continue ReadingWhy Are the Babies Dying?
Far more infants die in their first year of life in the United States than in most of the developed world, and new data from the Centers for Disease Control suggests one of the main reasons is premature births, and that could be helped by better access to prenatal care for mothers. Infant mortality is….
Continue ReadingPoor Patient Education Can Be Fatal; A Washington, DC Malpractice Story
Did you know that rupture of an Achilles tendon can be fatal? This common injury has one potentially fatal but preventable complication: a blood clot can develop in the calf while the leg is immobilized for healing of the injury, and if the clot gets big enough, it can travel to the heart and cause….
Continue ReadingJust Diagnosed with Cancer? Read on …
Patients with newly diagnosed cancer often feel that they have been uprooted from home and tossed into a foreign land — with strange landmarks, foreign language and more than enough fear and anxiety for a lifetime. It’s very useful to have guidance from a cancer survivor who has been there. A new article by a….
Continue ReadingSave the Children: Universal Health Care as a Moral Issue
A new study documents how lack of health insurance can be fatal to sick children — not because they are denied care once they get to the hospital, but because they get into the care system too late. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center crunched the numbers of two decades’ worth of children’s hospitalizations —….
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