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News: A nursing home resident with a history of difficulty in swallowing choked to death while eating a piece of brisket. Although staff attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver and CPR on her, the woman died.
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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Rockville, MD, recently released 17 new toolkits to help health care providers and patients prevent medical errors.
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With its best-selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa the target of thousands of legal claims, Eli Lilly and Co., based in Indianapolis, is trying to reassure psychiatrists they face little malpractice risk for prescribing such drugs.
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All patients treated in the Community Health Network's hospitals in Indiana are given a brochure that describes the Call FIRST (Family Initiated Rapid Screening Team) that serves as a safety net when patients or family members think their concerns are not being addressed. These are some excerpts from the brochure:
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Many health care providers are considering adopting the idea of a hotline that patients and family members can call when they think their concerns are being taken lightly by their immediate caregivers, but some risk managers might wonder if the phone will be ringing off the hook with trivial complaints and misunderstandings.
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Self-pay emergency department patients who have no primary care provider are being referred to a nearby primary care and specialty center under a program in place at St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson, AZ, part of the Carondelet Health Network.
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Faced with almost 50% of its patient population receiving Medicare benefits, Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, MA, took a proactive approach to comply with the revised Medicare regulation requiring hospitals to give patients the Important Notice from Medicare, informing them of their right to appeal their discharge.