-
The impact of medical devices on the cost of health care was one of the topics addressed at this year's National Health Policy Conference, but, typical for such gatherings, no answers were clearly established.
-
Every year in the United States, about 1,500 people have surgical items accidentally left inside them following a surgical procedure.1 About two-thirds of these items are sponges, which can lead to pain, infection, difficulty healing, and additional surgeries.
-
Regardless of the specifics of an individual contract, outpatient surgery providers are facing decreased reimbursement overall, says Anne Dean Schilling, RN, BSN, consultant with The ADA Group in DeLand, FL. This reduction means you need to reduce overhead, she says.
-
News: A man exhibiting tuberculosis-like symptoms went to a clinic for treatment. Tests were ordered, including an analysis by the state health department, after which it was determined that the man was suffering from a disease related to tuberculosis called Mycobacterium avium. Several months later, the man presented to the emergency department with ear pain and an upper respiratory infection. He died two weeks later.
-
Nineteen deaths over the past two years at a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in southern Illinois may be linked to substandard care, according to a an investigation that prompted an impassioned apology from a VA official.
-
Civil rights attorneys are suing Hollywood (CA) Presbyterian Medical Center in connection with the "dumping" of a paraplegic man on Skid Row in 2006 that sparked nationwide outrage after media reports of the man falling out of a van and then crawling in the gutter.
-
Nearly every health care facility has a patient safety brochure these days, and they almost always come out of some department other than risk management. So do you really know what is in your organization's patient safety brochure?
-
Addicted physicians must overcome significant fears about the impact on their careers and personal lives before they are willing to ask for help, so risk managers can help by assuring them the process will be about rehabilitation and not punishment, according to two experts in the field.
-
-
News: An obese, middle-aged woman suffering from pancreatitis and gallstones underwent gallbladder removal surgery at a hospital. Over the next two weeks, she continued to experience abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. Although doctors suspected that the woman might have gallstones floating freely in her bile duct, they were unable to perform the necessary procedures to confirm that suspicion due to the patient's size. The woman subsequently died.
