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A ruling in favor of the plaintiff could threaten the authority of the FDA by giving more power to state courts, says Maureen Martin, JD, senior fellow for legal affairs with The Heartland Institute in Chicago. She says the case could lead to a wholesale expansion of state regulation in other areas of law for any industry subject to intensive federal regulation. If that happens, the FDA will become ineffective, she predicts.
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The health care industry is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Wyeth v. Levine, a case that could determine the future of drug labeling and potential liability for providers who don't follow those instructions to the letter.
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As Healthcare Risk Management enters 2009, we celebrate 30 years of serving health care risk managers across the country. It has been an eventful three decades, with many changes in technology, philosophy, and strategies.
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With all the concerns lately about the economy, health care risk managers at least can take some solace in knowing that their median income is holding steady with indications for upward movement.
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Risk management continues to be an exciting career opportunity that offers new challenges all the time, says Georgene Saliba, RN, HRM, CPHRM, FASHRM, administrator for claims and risk management at Lehigh Valley Hospital & Health Network in Allentown, PA, and president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) in Chicago.
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News: A mother went to two area emergency departments on three consecutive days, complaining of nausea, vomiting, headaches, and numbness in her extremities. Each time, she was prescribed medication to treat the nausea, diagnosed with a possible gastrointestinal infection, and sent home. Just days after her third ED visit, the woman passed out and fell down a stairway. She was taken to a third hospital, where a CT scan showed a brain tumor, and physicians determined that the woman had suffered a brain infarction.
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News: A man was admitted to the hospital complaining of anxiety and being under tremendous pressure at work. The man was seen by an internist and a neurologist, and antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications were administered. After a few days, the man's condition improved, and the results of a brain MRI came back normal. The next morning, the man asked his nurse for a razor so that he could shave. Three hours later, he was found dead, locked in the bathroom, having committed suicide with the razor.
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The newly launched Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) has delivered the first online drug alerts to U.S. physicians.
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More hospitals are adopting the use of color-coded wristbands for patients in an effort to improve safety by alerting anyone nearby that the person is a fall risk, for instance, or to provide quick recognition that the patient has a penicillin allergy or even a do-not-resuscitate order. But now there are growing concerns that the wristbands can violate the patient's confidentiality by displaying private information to anyone who sees the wristband.
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Authority figures in health care have the potential to influence whether deviation is normalized, notes John Banja, PhD, assistant director for health sciences and clinical ethics at Emory University in Atlanta.
