Transfer of hospital patients can spread MRSA! Source: BBC Health; PloS Medicine. In our continuing education on antibiotic resistance and its impact upon patient care the Dutch medical journal PloS Medicine has published a study spanning 26 European countries
Cancer Drug Shortages Leading to Patient Rationing?!
Source: NY Times; American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy Practice Report; American Hospital Association It seems difficult to believe that life saving cancer drugs could be in such short supply that they are being rationed. It is even harder to believe that this is occurring currently -in the United States! According to recent information, 14 of [...]
Best Hospitals 2011-2012 Honor Roll Published
Source: US News and World Report All is not doom and gloom. The US News and World Report has published it's Honor Roll for it's Best Hospital Lists. According to the Report, a place on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll is reserved for medical centers demonstrating "unusually high expertise across multiple specialties" and scoring at [...]
Hospital Drug Shortages Impact Patient Care!
Sources: NPR News; American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy Practice Report; The American Hospital Association. Who knew that your hospital might have a shortage of medicine? According to the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy Practice Report, 2010 was the worst year to date for drug shortages at the nation's hospitals. 211 drugs used in hospitals were [...]
Hospitals can't prevent patients from falling?
Source: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons That's what a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons suggests. Despite nationwide efforts to prevent inpatient falls, hospitals do not prevent a significant amount of falling in hospitals. Falling is the leading cause of injuries (fatal and nonfatal) for older Americans. 1 in 3 [...]
Wrong surgeries occur 40x per week in US Hospitals!
Source: Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare In a shocking report which demonstrates that calls for "Tort Reform" are premature, surgeries performed by doctors on the wrong part of the body, occur 40 times per week in hospitals across the United States. The Joint Commission is the credentialing body which surveys US hospitals for, among [...]
Hospitals Exaggerate Benefits of Robotic Surgery
A review of 400 randomly selected hospital websites found out that many may be overestimating the benefits of using robotic surgery at their facilities - - while at the same time ignoring the risks, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. The researchers found that about 41 percent of the [...]
CT Overradiation Continues Despite FDA Warnings.
Source: New York Times National Ed., 3/6/2011; US Food & Drug Administration We previously reported on radiation errors with CT brain perfusion scans when they were widely reported in the summer of 2009 at Cedars-Sinai. Following reports at several other hospitals, the Food and Drug Administration conducted an investigation into why patients tested with this [...]
A timely observation -Treat the Patient, Not the CT Scan.
Source: NYT Sunday Opinion, 2/27/2011, Abraham Verghese Stanford University School of Medicine's Professor and author, Abraham Verghese has made timely observations as our society becomes ever more dependent upon technology and artificial intelligence, particularly as it relates to modern medicine. "When I was an intern some 30 years ago, about three million CT scans were [...]
Cholesterol Under-Treated Globally?
Source: BBC Health News In apparent response to our prior post on the potential over-prescription of statins for cholesterol management in borderline or healthy patients, the BBC and the pharmaceutical industry has struck back. (That was sarcasm for those who may have missed it. Like I have that kind of influence). A new article has [...]
US Healthcare waste accounts for $505-$850 billion, each year.
Source: Thompson Reuters According to a recent report by Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters, an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually on healthcare practices and procedures in need of revision. Examples of such waste include: A paper-based system which discourages the sharing of medical records (6 percent of annual overspending), [...]