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April 28th, 2007
According to the data, there was a 38 percent decline in med mal filings from the base years 2000-2002. In Philadelphia, the state’s largest judicial district, the decline has been over 50
percent. 2006 saw the fewest number of jury verdicts resulting in plaintiff awards. The complete report can be found on the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Court’s Web site.
for full story, click here
Posted in Malpractice Laws, News | No Comments »
April 24th, 2007
A consumer group urged Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry to veto a massive civil justice measure, arguing that the 109-page bill is replete with anti-consumer provisions and that insurance companies it is designed to protect are making record profits.
“This one has every conceivable bad thing in it,” Hunter said on Monday. “All these things will hurt people.”
Hunter sent Henry a letter urging him to veto the bill and require Commissioner of Insurance Kim Holland to review property and casualty insurance rates in the state to determine if their profits are excessive and lower rates if needed.
“A bill taking away the rights of victims of injury to further enrich insurers is not justified,” his letter states.
for full story, click here
Posted in Malpractice Laws, News | No Comments »
April 24th, 2007
For years, practicing medicine in Ohio meant never having to say you’re sorry. But more and more states are passing laws that allow doctors to acknowledge mistakes without fear of lawsuits.
Ohio passed its law in 2004. In all, 27 states now protect doctors in a similar fashion, and nine more are considering legislation.”We’re always training how to talk to a patient about a medical mistake or a complication that occurred in their care,” said Dr. Daniel Clinchot, associate dean for medical education at Ohio State University.
“The ‘I’m sorry’ laws have enabled this to come to life.”
for full article in the Columbus Dispatch, click here
At Case Western Reserve University, medical students learn during their first month how to talk to patients and their families about mistakes.
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April 18th, 2007
Every 5 or 10 years, Congress enacts major legislation addressing pressing issues at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This year, the biggest reforms since at least 1997 are expected. A decade ago, reform was motivated by the perception that the agency wasn’t getting new medicines to patients as efficiently as possible. Today, a leading concern is that it isn’t protecting the public from drugs’ risks as effectively as it might. A key incident in raising such concern was the 2004 withdrawal by Merck of rofecoxib (Vioxx) because of an apparent increased risk of serious cardiovascular events. The withdrawal came amid questions about the FDA’s handling of a possible association between selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors and suicidal ideation in adolescents. Further concerns were raised about the agency’s handling of staff disagreements about these and other drugs. In this context, the FDA sought a review from the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The IOM’s September 2006 report included a broad range of recommendations.1 Legislators have introduced various proposals reflecting these and other ideas, and the FDA has issued an action plan.2 Major legislation on drug safety is almost certain to be enacted before fall, as Congress reauthorizes the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), which provides fees from drug manufacturers to cover part of the cost of regulation. This legislation will influence the way safety issues are evaluated and addressed, with important implications for the available information about drugs’ risks and benefits and for physician prescribing.
It represents an opportunity to implement a more systematic approach to improving drug safety and effective use, if some challenges can be overcome. Steps intended to enhance safety could also increase costs and reduce access to beneficial drugs. Moreover, the tools available for learning about drugs and ensuring their effective use have changed enormously since the last time drug-safety legislation was seriously considered. Electronic data on prescription use and patient outcomes are now widely available, and prescribing is influenced by sophisticated drug-utilization–management programs, newer forms of drug coverage including tiered benefits, and extensive Internet resources for consumers.
for full article in New England Journal of Medicine, click here
Posted in News, Unsafe Drugs | No Comments »
April 13th, 2007
Democratic lawmakers used their majority status to pass the measure. They said government negotiations in some cases could lower the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries. People in Medicare drug plans now rely on their insurers to conduct those negotiations.
When you’re negotiating on behalf of 43 million people, that’s leverage,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
The legislation approved Thursday simply strikes a clause that prohibits the secretary of Health and Human Services from interfering in the negotiations between drug makers, insurers and pharmacies. The committee approved the bill 13-8, with two Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon, voting with the Democrats on the committee.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the bill’s author, said the prohibition on government negotiations went too far. “We eliminated the government’s role in getting fair drug prices for seniors,” he said.
Republicans noted that the Congressional Budget Office, in reviewing the measure, found it would have a “negligible effect” on federal spending. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the bill made for a good sound bite, but not effective policy. He said the program is already costing less than expected and that Medicare beneficiaries say they’re happy with the drug benefit.
for full story, click here
Posted in News, Unsafe Drugs | No Comments »
April 12th, 2007
The wave of “I’m sorry” laws is part of a movement in the medical industry to encourage doctors to promptly and fully inform patients of errors and, when warranted, to apologize. Some hospitals say apologies help defuse patient anger and stave off lawsuits.
At the same time, many doctors are trained or warned never to admit errors in case a patient sues.
for full story, click here
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April 12th, 2007
Improving quality of care and patient (customer) satisfaction are among the top business
issues that will most impact healthcare in the next two years, according to the 360
healthcare IT professionals who participated in the 18th Annual HIMSS Leadership
Survey. This patientcentric
focus is further demonstrated by participant responses
regarding their current/future top IT priorities and the importance of IT applications.
When asked to identify their organization’s top IT priorities, implementing technology to
reduce medical errors/promote patient safety was identified most frequently as the
current priority, as well as the top priority in the next two years. A focus on quality of
care and patient safety is reflected in the choices of healthcare technology that
respondents indicated will be important in the course of the next two years. Nine of the
top ten healthcare applications that were identified as being important for the future
were clinical systems. Topping the list are electronic medical records (EMRs),
computerized practitioner order entry (CPOE), and clinical information systems.
for full story, click here
Posted in Hospital Safety, News | No Comments »
April 10th, 2007
 In health-care circles surgeons have long been regarded as rock stars. They’re viewed with awe by patients and treated with deference by hospital staff. But surgeons, like some temperamental guitarists, might do well to improve their interpersonal skills.
Evidence is mounting that surgeons’ failure to communicate with patients and co-workers is a leading cause of avoidable surgical errors. A recent analysis of 460 malpractice claims that had been resolved found that nearly 20% of them were filed largely, if not entirely, because of communication breakdowns. The sobering results appear in the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
A group of 40 surgeons who reviewed the claims found that surgeons frequently failed to listen to patients, nurses and family members. Surgeons also missed chances to pass along information that might have prevented errors. And they often neglected to solicit information from others—hoping that all was well rather than probing for evidence to the contrary. “This was an effort to be really critical of ourselves and look at the common threads in the worst cases where surgeons have gotten into trouble,” says Thomas Russell, executive director of the ACS, which funded the study.
for full story, click here
Posted in News, Surgical Error | No Comments »
April 7th, 2007
Drug prices, health insurance, doctor visits and hospital stays are too expensive for many people to afford, while insurance and drug company profits continue to climb.
The nation is entering a health care crisis, many leaders and experts say. An estimated 46 million people do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it, and the U.S. has one of the poorest health profiles of the developed world.
Meanwhile, in 2005, pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson earned profits of 10 billion dollars and Pfizer had profits of eight billion dollars, according to Fortune Magazine.
for full story, click here
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April 6th, 2007
Business executives are motivated in large part by health insurance premiums that are rising much faster than inflation, adding to their costs at a time when many are facing more intense competition from abroad, where companies rely on government-supported health care systems largely financed by taxes. A 2006 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates found that premiums in the United States had risen about 87 percent since 2000.
“Five years from now this problem will have to be cured, or the competitiveness of the United States will be dramatically affected,” said J. Randall MacDonald, senior vice president for human resources at I.B.M.
But companies are by no means speaking with one voice. Everybody’s problem — the growing cost of health coverage — can be felt differently depending on the size of a company and whether it has promised health benefits to retirees.
Older companies, for example, are more likely to welcome government help on coverage for workers who leave before they are eligible for Medicare and may find they cannot afford insurance. But Silicon Valley technology companies that do not have or need retiree coverage are wary of new taxpayer-financed subsidies.
The health care debate is heating up as candidates polish their positions for next year’s presidential primaries, and as Democrats in Congress assert their newfound power.
Posted in News | No Comments »
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