Some states require health-care providers to report outcomes about certain heart procedures, and some states don’t. A recent study in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) of nearly 100,000 Medicare patients in 10 states showed that doctors in mandatory reporting states perform the procedures less often than doctors in states with no reporting requirement…..
Continue ReadingArchives for October 2012
A Misinformed Doctor Misguides People About the Causes of Malpractice
We like the often informative, always entertaining medical blog KevinMd.com. Regular readers of this blog know that we often link to KevinMd because we want people to have good information. Unfortunately, that’s not what one of its guest bloggers recently offered. A post called “Cause of death: Defensive medicine” promulgated tired and inaccurate information that….
Continue ReadingSurvey Results Show Consumers, Providers and Employers Hold Low Opinion of Health Care System
The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research arm of the business consulting firm Deloitte LLP, recently surveyed consumers, physicians and employers about the U.S. health-care system. Although these groups often have competing interests and agendas, they shared a low opinion about health care in America. As reported on MedCity News, 63 percent of consumers,….
Continue ReadingThe Risks of Buying Drugs from Online Pharmacies
Online commerce is convenient, quick and often cost-conscious. When it comes to purchasing prescription medicine online, however, the market is fraught with risk. Late last month the FDA initiated a public education program to inform consumers about fake pharmacies and the dangers they present. Called BeSafeRx:Know Your Online Pharmacy, the website helps people vet possible….
Continue ReadingLeaving Tools Inside the Patient after Surgery
Even when surgery is necessary, it’s scary. Common patient concerns include anesthesia, operating on the wrong body part, infection, and surgical stuff left inside your body after you are closed up. All these prospects are fairly remote, except for the risk of infection. But then you read a story like the one recently published in….
Continue ReadingUpdates on the Mounting Toll from Contaminated Drugs “Compounded” by Mass. Pharmacy
The death and disability toll from the contaminated spinal pain relief drugs “compounded” by a New England pharmacy continues to mount. Patients have come down with serious infections in Maryland, Virginia and eight other states, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Check this CDC web page for updates and good advice on what patients….
Continue ReadingWhy Don’t Patients Report the Harm Caused by Medical Errors?
According to ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative journalism organization, “A review of medical records by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general found that in a single month 1 in 7 Medicare patients was harmed in the hospital, or roughly 134,000 people. … An estimated 1.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced an event that….
Continue ReadingYour Money or Your Life: Injury Toll from Pain Injection Drugs Climbs
As more patients in Maryland, Virginia and seven other states are found with severe meningitis infections from an injected steroid pain drug, the tradeoff in how the drug got made is becoming increasingly plain. It’s a new variation on the old line, “Your money or your life.” The “compounding” pharmacy in Massachusetts that made and….
Continue ReadingDrugs “Compounded” by Pharmacies: A Contamination Disaster Waiting to Happen
The ongoing outbreak of spinal infections — with so far five patients dead and 30 with serious meningitis infections in six states, including Maryland and Virginia — shows the antiquated regulatory system for drugs that are compounded by a pharmacy. All the injected steroid drugs that have sickened and killed patients came from a pharmacy….
Continue ReadingA Surgeon Outs the Deficiencies in Health Care
If only Dr. Marty Makary could be everybody’s doctor. He’s a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and associate professor of Health Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Unlike many of his fellow professionals, he’s vocal about the deficiencies in the delivery of health care, and openly discusses the problems of medical malpractice…..
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