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Health & Medicine Week
December 22, 2003
MEDICAL ERROR: Study finds physicians reluctant to acknowledge,
deal with mistakes
Doctors participating in internal medicine hospital conferences designed
to review adverse medical events do not often discuss related medical errors,
according to a study led by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical
Center (SFVAMC).
Study results showed that participants in surgery conferences were
more likely than those in internal medicine conferences to discuss medical
errors as errors and to attribute errors to a particular cause. Conference
leaders for both groups missed opportunities to use explicit language in
error discussion, according to the researchers.
The study appeared in the December 3, 2003, issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association.
"The findings of the study point to a culture that has difficulty acknowledging
and dealing with error," says the study's senior author, Seth Landefeld,
MD, associate chief of staff for geriatrics at SFVAMC; professor and chief
of geriatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and senior scholar
in the Department of Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Program.
Health & Medicine Week
December 22, 2003
MEDICAL ERROR: Study finds physicians reluctant to acknowledge,
deal with mistakes
Doctors participating in internal medicine hospital conferences designed
to review adverse medical events do not often discuss related medical errors,
according to a study led by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical
Center (SFVAMC).
Study results showed that participants in surgery conferences were
more likely than those in internal medicine conferences to discuss medical
errors as errors and to attribute errors to a particular cause. Conference
leaders for both groups missed opportunities to use explicit language in
error discussion, according to the researchers.
The study appeared in the December 3, 2003, issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association.
"The findings of the study point to a culture that has difficulty acknowledging
and dealing with error," says the study's senior author, Seth Landefeld,
MD, associate chief of staff for geriatrics at SFVAMC; professor and chief
of geriatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and senior scholar
in the Department of Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Program.
Managed Care Weekly Digest
December 22, 2003
MEDICAL ERROR: Study finds physicians reluctant to acknowledge,
deal with mistakes
Doctors participating in internal medicine hospital conferences designed
to review adverse medical events do not often discuss related medical errors,
according to a study led by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical
Center (SFVAMC).
Study results showed that participants in surgery conferences were
more likely than those in internal medicine conferences to discuss medical
errors as errors and to attribute errors to a particular cause. Conference
leaders for both groups missed opportunities to use explicit language in
error discussion, according to the researchers.
The study appeared in the December 3, 2003, issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association.
"The findings of the study point to a culture that has difficulty acknowledging
and dealing with error," says the study's senior author, Seth Landefeld,
MD, associate chief of staff for geriatrics at SFVAMC; professor and chief
of geriatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and senior scholar
in the Department of Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Program.
Managed Care Weekly Digest
December 22, 2003
MEDICAL ERROR: Study finds physicians reluctant to acknowledge,
deal with mistakes
Doctors participating in internal medicine hospital conferences designed
to review adverse medical events do not often discuss related medical errors,
according to a study led by researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical
Center (SFVAMC).
Study results showed that participants in surgery conferences were
more likely than those in internal medicine conferences to discuss medical
errors as errors and to attribute errors to a particular cause. Conference
leaders for both groups missed opportunities to use explicit language in
error discussion, according to the researchers.
The study appeared in the December 3, 2003, issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association.
"The findings of the study point to a culture that has difficulty acknowledging
and dealing with error," says the study's senior author, Seth Landefeld,
MD, associate chief of staff for geriatrics at SFVAMC; professor and chief
of geriatrics at University of California, San Francisco; and senior scholar
in the Department of Veterans Affairs National Quality Scholars Program.
The Baltimore Sun
December 15, 2003
Monday FINAL Edition Correction Appended
From tragedy, a quest for safer care; Cause: After medical mistakes
led to her little girl's death, Sorrel King joined with Johns Hopkins in
a campaign to spare other families such anguish.
Sorrel King seemed small up on stage next to the two photographs of
her daughter Josie, projected on a huge screen. In one shot, the brown-haired
girl looked like she'd been caught in mid-giggle.
Most of the speakers at this Washington conference on patient safety
last March were professionals, armed with statistics and Powerpoint presentations.
Sorrel arrived with a few sheets of paper filled with words written in
pain. She wasn't there to share research or discuss hospital policies.
She was there to talk about the loss of her child.
"I am not a doctor or a nurse, and am by no means an expert in this
field," she began. "I am a mother who has seen the darkest side of a hospital."
Because of an editing error, an article in The Sun yesterday about
medical errors gave the wrong title for Dr. Edward D. Miller. He is chief
executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine and dean of the Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine.
The Baltimore Sun
December 14, 2003 Sunday FINAL Edition
How medical error took a little girl's life; Tragedy: After being
scalded in a bathtub accident, 18-month-old Josie King was recovering at
Johns Hopkins. Then something went terribly wrong.
During those frightening first days in the hospital, Sorrel King came
to trust the doctors and nurses looking after her 18-month- old daughter.
Hooked up to tubes and machines, sterile dressings covering her burns,
Josie looked nothing like the little girl who danced through life wearing
ladybug shoes and a gap-toothed grin.
The medical team at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center constantly
monitored Josie's mixture of drugs, watched for signs of infection, performed
skin grafts to repair the damage from her bathtub accident. If she fussed,
someone would immediately check whether she was in pain. After she struggled
to fill her lungs with air, a ventilator regulated her every breath. Sorrel,
keeping vigil in the intensive-care unit, allowed herself to feel relief
at seeing her daughter slowly heal.
As the long days settled into a routine, Sorrel began to view the doctors
and nurses not just as caregivers in white coats and scrubs but as people
like her, with vibrant lives waiting outside the hospital. The attending
physician was Greek and loved to cook. The critical-care doctor was a new
father. The pretty pediatric surgeon, a prodigy who had graduated from
medical school at age 19, had a long-distance romance. Sorrel thanked them
with brownies and fruit baskets and her admiration.
PR Newswire
December 9, 2003, Tuesday
Cardinal Health Introduces Medical Gloves That Help Improve Skin,
Relieve Dermatitis; New Gloves Help Protect Hands From Skin Problems That
Increase Infection Risks for Health Workers and Patients
Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH), the leading provider of products and services
supporting the health-care industry, announced today it has received clearance
from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market an advanced new line
of medical gloves made with Neu-Thera(TM), an emollient that is proven
clinically to improve skin health and protect hands from irritation. The
gloves are the first to be manufactured with a proprietary formula that
protects, restores, moisturizes and soothes hands. Repeated washing, scrubbing
and gloving by physicians and nurses can cause dry and irritated hands.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that health-care
workers select products containing emollients to lower the risk of irritant
contact dermatitis (Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings,
October 2002.) Skin irritation, according to the CDC, is one reason clinicians
don't adhere to recommended hand hygiene guidelines. Contact dermatitis
is a painful condition characterized by dry, itchy, red and cracked skin.
Dermatitis can increase the risk of infection for patients and health-care
workers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nurses miss
an average of two work days annually due to dermatitis. Following more
than two years of research, development and clinical testing, Cardinal
Health is introducing the Neu-Thera formulation in its leading line of
Esteem(TM) synthetic exam and surgical gloves. Esteem surgical gloves are
made of polyisoprene, which is known for its strength and barrier properties,
elasticity and softness. Esteem exam gloves are made from nitrile, which
is known for its chemical resistance, barrier integrity, elasticity and
strength.
United Press International
December 5, 2003 Friday
Internal medicine docs review cases poorly
Internal medicine doctors' review of bad outcomes often do not
include discussion of related medical errors, California researchers said
Friday.
The San Francisco VA Medical Center study revealed internal medicine
hospital conferences designed to review adverse medical events do not often
discuss doctors' mistakes.
United Press International
December 5, 2003 Friday
Health and Science News
Poliovirus used to create anti-cancer drug
DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 5 (UPI) -- North Carolina researchers used the anti-cancer
properties of poliovirus to create a virus that kills cancer cells, Duke
University reported Friday.
The new virus killed cancer cells in laboratory cell cultures and in
animals -- and without causing polio, said Matthias Gromeier, assistant
professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the Duke Comprehensive
Cancer Center.
Testing of the new viral agent in humans should begin within two years,
he said.
In the study, the modified poliovirus killed cancer cells derived from
primary brain tumors as well as cells derived from breast and colon cancer
metastases in four to six hours.
The Oprah Winfrey Show
December 3, 2003 Wednesday
Outrageous medical mistakes; guests discuss what has happened while
under the care of a doctor that has affected their lives
OPRAH WINFREY: What you need to know before you go to any doctor.
He woke up from surgery without his penis.
Can you believe this story?
For four days, doctors refused to deliver these twins.
Mr. GARY SUSSER: The only thing I could have done was pick up a knife
myself to deliver these babies.
Patient Care
December 1, 2003
Reducing medical errors in primary care: medical errors come in all
shapes and sizes and stem from a variety of causes. Many can be avoided
by vigilance and common sense; Enhancing Your Practice
According to the 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report To Err is
Human: Building a Safer Health System, 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each
year as a result of medical errors. (1) The exact numbers are debated,
but the message is clear: Medical professionals must find ways to decrease
the incidence of medical mistakes. The IOM estimates are based solely on
inpatient errors, and most medical error research has been performed in
hospital settings. The majority of medical care, however, is provided in
the ambulatory arena, with nearly 907 million outpatient visits in 2000.
The study of ambulatory medical errors is in its infancy, and it may be
years before research guides us to the best means of reducing errors in
this setting. Fortunately, many of the medical errors that occur in the
ambulatory setting can be eliminated with the application of a few common-sense
strategies.
A PRIMER ON MEDICAL ERRORS
The IOM describes 2 types of errors: failure to complete a planned
action as intended (error of execution) and use of an erroneous plan to
achieve a medical outcome (error of planning).
Fortune
November 24, 2003
IT Takes On The ER (Results May Vary); Hospitals, worried about
streamlining and safety, are finally joining the digital revolution. But
cautious doctors and entrenched bureaucracies are causing tech firms chronic
pain.
It's midmorning in late October, and Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn
is already frenetic. On the fifth floor Dr. Victor Guadagnino, a private-practice
physician, checks lab reports at a computer terminal for an 82-year-old
patient with congestive heart failure admitted the day before. He clicks
through screen after screen: Her echocardiogram shows decreased function,
her thyroid is out of whack, and her kidneys are abnormal. He can see that
an ultrasound on her liver has been scheduled for this morning. No need
to reorder. He shakes his head about her prognosis. "This is going to be
a problem," he says before heading off to her room to check her in person.
One floor up Dr. Andrew Yacht orders treatment for a pneumonia patient.
Before he can key in his request, a prompt appears. "Is this the correct
patient?" He clicks yes. Another screen pops up: "The accepted antibiotic
is Gatifloxacin." Before he can order it, the computer indicates that he
should take two sets of blood cultures and a sputum study, and asks whether
the patient is on a given list of antiarrhythmics. If so, the program warns,
Gatifloxacin should not be administered because of the risk of heart toxicity.
Newsbytes
November 21, 2003, Friday
Doctors Advised to Keep Records Electronically
The Institute of Medicine yesterday called for hospitals and physicians
to adopt electronic record-keeping systems that would prevent tens of thousands
of fatal medical errors a year and form the basis for a nationwide flow
of patient information among practitioners and medical facilities.
The government would set the standards for electronic records and error-surveillance
systems but would not tell hospitals and clinics what to buy.
Use of such systems, which can guide treatment decisions as well as
catch mistakes, would be voluntary, said the institute, which advises the
federal government on medical policy. Over time, however, electronic record-keeping
and participation in a national information network should become conditions
for participating in programs such as Medicare, making them essentially
mandatory.
Technews.com
November 21, 2003
FT-ACC-NO: A20031121EE-6698-GNW
DOCTORS ADVISED TO KEEP RECORDS ELECTRONICALLY
The Institute of Medicine yesterday called for hospitals and physicians
to adopt electronic record-keeping systems that would prevent tens of thousands
of fatal medical errors a year and form the basis for a nationwide flow
of patient information among practitioners and medical facilities.
The government would set the standards for electronic records and error-surveillance
systems but would not tell hospitals and clinics what to buy.
Use of such systems, which can guide treatment decisions as well as
catch mistakes, would be voluntary, said the institute, which advises the
federal government on medical policy. Over time, however, electronic record-keeping
and participation in a national information network should become conditions
for participating in programs such as Medicare, making them essentially
mandatory.
The Washington Post
November 21, 2003 Friday Final Edition
Doctors Advised to Keep Records Electronically; Technology Could Prevent
Errors, Report Says
The Institute of Medicine yesterday called for hospitals and physicians
to adopt electronic record-keeping systems that would prevent tens of thousands
of fatal medical errors a year and form the basis for a nationwide flow
of patient information among practitioners and medical facilities.
The government would set the standards for electronic records and error-surveillance
systems but would not tell hospitals and clinics what to buy.
Use of such systems, which can guide treatment decisions as well as
catch mistakes, would be voluntary, said the institute, which advises the
federal government on medical policy. Over time, however, electronic record-keeping
and participation in a national information network should become conditions
for participating in programs such as Medicare, making them essentially
mandatory.
MarketWatch
November 19, 2003 Wednesday
Doctors next in ratings initiatives
Second of two parts. See Part 1:
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Before Todd Gordon's son was born a year
ago, he and his wife turned to their health plan's Web site to find a pediatrician.
"As new parents freaking out about everything, we wanted to make sure
we had the right pediatrician, or at least one we could relate to," says
Gordon, 36.
Fortunately, they had few criteria: They wanted a doctor who lived
close and was affiliated with a local Chicago hospital on their Destiny
Health plan, a list that Destiny provided them. Ultimately, the Gordons
landed on a hospital Web site where they compared pediatricians' bios before
making their choice.
Congressional Testimony
November 19, 2003 Wednesday
COMMITTEE: HOUSE VETERANS AFFAIRS
MEDICAL RECORDS SHARING
Statement of Kem Clawson Director, Advanced Technology Solutions EMC
Corporation
Committee on House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
November 19, 2003
Chairman Buyer, Congresswoman Hooley, and distinguished members of
the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, I am Kem Clawson, Director
of Advanced Technology Solutions at EMC. It is an honor and pleasure to
be here this morning.
EMC is the world leader in enterprise information storage systems,
software, networks and services. Our company is focused exclusively on
delivering solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to better and
more cost-effectively manage, protect, share, and store information. Every
dollar we invest, every engineer we employ, is focused on information storage.
With revenues of over $5 billion in 2002, EMC has developed storage solutions
for the majority of the world's largest banks, financial institutions,
airlines, telecommunication companies, transportation companies, Internet
Service Providers, educational institutions, and Federal government agencies.
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)
November 18, 2003 Tuesday, FINAL EDITION
Error Relief; Hospitals use new technology to reduce potentially deadly
medication and testing mistakes
Mistakes made in hospitals cause more deaths nationwide than car accidents,
breast cancer or AIDS. Alaska's hospital officials read staggering statements
like that in a 1999 national report by the private Institute of Medicine.
The report drew from two large studies, one of Utah and Colorado hospitals
and one of New York hospitals, and extrapolated the error rates over total
U.S. hospital admissions in 1997. The institute estimated that errors killed
44,000 to 98,000 people every year and cost $17 billion to $29 billion
in lost income and household productivity, and disability and health care
costs
"That got everyone's attention," said Jim Moran, Providence Alaska
Medical Center's pharmacy director. "It really was an eye-opener. Those
numbers were scary."
The state's hospitals have responded with changes to reduce errors:
Alaska Regional Hospital is bar-coding patients. Alaska Native Medical
Center is filling prescriptions with robot technology. Providence is eliminating
the human touch in its laboratory.
The Idaho Statesman
November 15, 2003 Saturday
Boise gets a taste of brewing national debate on health care; Gingrich
shares his vision at a local conference
Gregory Hahn - Staff
There's a battle brewing over health care in America, and if you listen
closely you can hear some of the artillery being fired right here in Boise.
In the past month, Boiseans have been able to hear from two of the
people who may lead their sides into this fight. The state of Idaho could
find itself in the forefront of the debates on long-term care, covering
the uninsured, and other emerging questions.
"This is the right topic," said Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who has place
the issue on the national stage as head of the National Governors Association
. "This is the right time. We need to find solutions."
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
November 12, 2003 Wednesday FINAL EDITION
Many chances for mistakes in hospitals ; TAKES FIVE; LUCIAN LEAPE;
Many chances for mistakes in hospital s
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine concluded that 44,000 to 98,000
people die each year from preventable medical errors. Lucian Leape was
a part of that panel and says that the design of the hospital system --
not the staff -- makes it easy for errors to occur. A former pediatric
surgeon, Leape has been a longtime advocate for a national computerized
bar code system to help prevent dosing and prescribing errors. He also
says hospitals should focus not on punishing people for their errors but
on redesigning their systems to optimize patient safety and care. Leape
is in town today and Thursday to talk to health care workers about creating
a safe environment for patients. Leape, now an adjunct professor of health
policy in the department of health policy and management at Harvard School
of Public Health, spoke with medical reporter Kawanza L. Griffin from his
office earlier this week.
United Press International
November 12, 2003 Wednesday
Patient information going digital
An organization representing family doctors said Wednesday it
is forming an alliance with 10 technology companies to bring electronic
health record technology to thousands of small-to-medium-sized medical
practices that are struggling to afford digital upgrades.
The American Academy of Family Physicians said although many doctors'
offices across the country already are using new computerized health record
bookkeeping systems, many more do not. If the technology could be extended
to the entire physician population, however, e-health records ultimately
could save the nation billions of dollars -- though experts said there
are no current savings estimates and it could take years to reap financial
benefits.
Nationally, "administration inefficiencies can run as high as $300
billion," said Dr. Mark Leavitt, vice president of clinical initiatives
for GE Medical Systems Information Technologies in Milwaukee, one of the
companies participating in the alliance. Using electronic health records
could cut those costs significantly, he added.
American College of Healthcare Executives Journal of Healthcare Management
November 1, 2003
Integrating Six Sigma with total quality management: a case example
for measuring medication errors.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Six Sigma is a new management philosophy that seeks a nonexistent error
rate. It is ripe for healthcare because many healthcare processes require
a near-zero tolerance for mistakes. For most organizations, establishing
a Six Sigma program requires significant resources and produces considerable
stress. However, in healthcare, management can piggyback Six Sigma onto
current total quality management (TQM) efforts so that minimal disruption
occurs in the organization. Six Sigma is an extension of the Failure Mode
and Effects Analysis that is required by ICAHO; it can easily be integrated
into existing quality management efforts. Integrating Six Sigma into the
existing TQM program facilitates process improvement through detailed data
analysis. A drilled-down approach to root-cause analysis greatly enhances
the existing TQM approach. Using the Six Sigma metrics, internal project
comparisons facilitate resource allocation while external project comparisons
allow for benchmarking. Thus, the application of Six Sigma makes TQM efforts
more successful.
This article presents a framework for including Six Sigma in an organization
's TQM plan while providing a concrete example using medication errors.
Using the process defined in this article, healthcare executives can integrate
Six Sigma into all of their TQM projects.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 28, 2003 Tuesday SOONER EDITION
New Test Combination Detects down Syndrome Earlier in Fetuses
A new combination of blood tests and ultrasound can detect fetuses
with Down syndrome sooner and more accurately than standard U.S. screening
tests, offering mothers-to-be more peace of mind and more time to decide
whether to end a pregnancy.
The study of 8,216 women at a dozen U.S. medical centers confirms findings
in England and elsewhere, where the combination is already widely used.
The usual blood screenings done in this country identify up to 75 percent
of Down syndrome babies, but do not yield results until about 20 weeks
into pregnancy, when abortion is more dangerous and often difficult to
obtain.
The new combination -- two blood tests, ultrasound and the mother's
age -- correctly identified 85 percent of fetuses with Down syndrome and
yielded results at about 12 weeks.
Business Wire
October 27, 2003 Monday
Acupath Laboratories Says Make No Mistake, Medical Errors Are
a Serious Reality; Tips for Reducing the Chance of Becoming a Medical Error
Victim
Medical errors are a reality. It is estimated that medical errors are
one of the Nation's leading causes of death. The Institute of Medicine
estimates that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in US hospitals as
a result of medical errors. This means that more people die from medical
errors than from car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
The Olympian (Olympia, WA)
October 22, 2003 Wednesday
Prescription medication stamped with new codes
Scanning technology will improve accuracy
BY SHARON MICHAEL
THE OLYMPIAN
Capital Medical Center nursing staff and patients still are getting
used to the hardware and electronic beeps that accompany the bedside administration
of medications.
Nurse Jennifer Wohld pushed a cart with a laptop computer into Phyllis
Jefferson's room last week and scanned Jefferson's wristband and the prescribed
medication before administering it to the Tumwater woman.
The new bar-code system uses technology found in grocery and department
stores to ensure that the right patient is getting the prescribed medication
in the correct amount at the right time.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 17, 2003 Friday SOONER EDITION
Learn from These Errors
Unfortunately too many physicians have adopted the mind-set that errors
are shameful events, committed only by inferior doctors. Far too many medical
errors go unreported, making it impossible for other doctors and hospitals
to learn from them.
Modern Healthcare
October 13, 2003, Monday
Counting the risks; Study details costs of injuries during hospitalization
Although injuries during hospitalization are recognized as a
major hazard in the healthcare system, little is known about their effective
prevention. A new study released last week by the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality lends more credence to some common-sense conclusions
others previously had drawn about the problem.
The study, which appeared in the Oct. 8 Journal of the American Medical
Association, estimated that medical injuries resulted in an estimated 32,591
patient deaths, $4.6 billion in additional national healthcare costs and
2.4 million extra days of hospitalization in 2000. It follows the landmark
report in 1999 by the Institute of Medicine that concluded medical injuries
account for 44,000 to 98,000 patient deaths and $17 billion in direct healthcare
costs annually.
American Health Line
October 8, 2003 Wednesday
Medical Injuries: Led to 32,600 Deaths, $9.3b Cost in 2000
Medical injuries in U.S. hospitals in 2000 led to about 32,600 deaths,
at least 2.4 million extra days of patient hospitalization and additional
costs of up to $9.3 billion, according to a study published Tuesday in
the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Wall Street Journal
reports (Burton, Wall Street Journal, 10/8). Study authors Dr. Chunliu
Zhan of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Dr. Marlene
Miller of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and colleagues analyzed records
from 994 hospitals in 28 states, a sample representative of about 20% of
U.S. hospitals (Fackelmann, USA Today, 10/8). Researchers considered 18
diagnostic billing codes previously found to be indicative of medical injuries,
the Baltimore Sun reports. Those included accidental punctures, medical
objects accidentally left in patients during surgery and sepsis infections
(Bell, Baltimore Sun, 10/8). Because the analysis was based on billing
data, researchers did not track some errors, such as adverse drug reactions
(Wall Street Journal, 10/8). The study found that sepsis infections --
the "most serious complication" -- occurred in 2,592 patients, resulting
in a 22% higher risk of death, $57,727 in additional costs and 11 extra
days of hospitalization per patient, the AP/Detroit Free Press reports.
Surgical wounds represented the second-most serious medical injury, with
a nearly 10% higher risk of death, $40,323 in additional costs and nine
extra days of hospitalization per patient (Tanner, AP/Detroit Free Press,
10/8). The authors concluded that medical injuries in hospitals "pose a
significant threat to patients and incur substantial costs to society"
and "are a serious epidemic confronting our health care system."
Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah)
October 8, 2003, Wednesday
Preventable complications cost more than $9 billion
CHICAGO -- Postoperative infections, surgical wounds accidentally opening
and other often-preventable complications lead to more than 32,000 U.S.
hospital deaths and more than $9 billion in extra costs annually, a report
suggests.
Researchers from the U.S. government's Agency for Healthcare Research
analyzed data on 18 complications sometimes caused by medical errors. They
found that such complications contribute to 2.4 million extra days in the
hospital each year.
Newsday (New York)
October 8, 2003 Wednesday NASSAU AND SUFFOLKEDITION
Medical Complications Prove Costly
Chicago - Postoperative infections, surgical wounds accidentally opening
and other often-preventable complications lead to more than 32,000 U.S.
hospital deaths and more than $9 billion in extra costs annually, a report
suggests.
Researchers from the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality analyzed data on 18 complications sometimes caused by medical errors.
St. Petersburg Times
October 8, 2003 Wednesday 0 South Pinellas Edition
Survey: Complications deadly, costly
Postoperative infections, surgical wounds accidentally opening and
other often-preventable complications lead to more than 32,000 U.S. hospital
deaths and more than $9-billion in extra costs annually, a report suggests.
Researchers from the U.S. government's Agency for Healthcare Research
analyzed data on 18 complications sometimes caused by medical errors. They
found that such complications contribute to 2.4-million extra days in the
hospital each year.
The Oprah Winfrey Show (4:00 PM ET) - BNO
October 3, 2003 Friday
Outrageous medical mistakes; guests discuss what has happened
while under the care of a doctor that has affected their lives
HOST: Oprah Winfrey
Executive Producer: Ellen Rakieten
Outrageous Medical Mistakes
Oprah Winfrey: What you need to know before you go to any doctor.
He woke up from surgery without his penis.
Can you believe this story?
For four days, doctors refused to deliver these twins.
Mr. GARY SUSSER: The only thing I could have done was pick up a knife
myself to deliver these babies.
PR Newswire
October 1, 2003, Wednesday
Department of Defense Awards Park City Solutions 'Concept Exploration
Support' Contract for DoD Patient Safety Reporting System
Park City Solutions, the leading eHealth integration solution provider
in healthcare, today announced the Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded
Park City Solutions' Government Services Group the "Concept Exploration
Support" contract for the DoD's Patient Safety Reporting System. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030609/PCSLOGO ) "This important
phase of the patient safety system project analyzes the 'best of breed'
patient safety applications both in the commercial sector as well as the
Government, and provides the Department of Defense with the information
necessary to acquire or develop a system," said Ed Rosas, Sr. Vice President,
Park City Solutions. As many of us are aware, "First, do no harm" has been
a cardinal rule of the medical profession for centuries. Yet any
encounter with the healthcare system may result in unwanted and harmful
consequences for the patient. These harmful outcomes have been called
"preventable adverse events, iatrogenic injuries or simply medical errors."
The magnitude of this problem and the extent of its impact were reported
by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its report, "To Err is Human: Building
a Safer Health System" (IOM 1999). "This report has influenced a
number of initiatives with regards to recording and preventing medical
errors", said Rosas. "The IOM report estimated that between 44,000 and
98,000 patients die every year because of medical errors -- a staggering
number that captured the attention of the medical world, state and local
governments, regulatory agencies, business leaders, and -- perhaps most
importantly -- the public.
USA TODAY
October 1, 2003, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
For many in U.S., good health care barely exists
: You have a heart attack. Your spouse gets you to a major teaching
hospital in 15 minutes. Within another 30 minutes, doctors thread a tiny
device into the clogged artery that caused the attack -- and reopen it
(a procedure called angioplasty). You leave the hospital the next day with
a handful of prescriptions and lifestyle advice that will sharply lower
your risk of a second attack. You are back at work in a week.
After a heart attack in 1965, you would have been in the hospital a
week or more and had a 28% chance of dying there. Today, that chance is
only one in 10.
Business Wire
September 25, 2003 Thursday
Allscripts Wins Innovation Award at TETHIC 2003; TouchWorks EMR Selected
as the Most Innovative Information Technology for Physician Practices
The Emerging Technologies & Healthcare Innovations Congress (TETHIC)
selected Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (Nasdaq:MDRX) TouchWorks(TM) EMR
as the "Most Innovative Information Technology in a Physician Community"
at the 2003 TETHIE Awards on Tuesday night. The TETHIE Awards recognize
industry leadership in the areas of innovation, technology, implementation,
best practices, and research.
"TouchWorks is a unique application that leverages the best of today's
technology to truly improve how patient care is delivered," commented Mark
Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of AC Group, Inc. and Co-chairperson
of the judging committee for the TETHIE Awards. "We found what this application
can deliver in terms of patient safety to be particularly impressive."
The Indianapolis Star
September 8, 2003 Monday Final Edition
Change the system to safeguard NASA lives
Lisa Coffey's Sept. 5 column ("Columbia disaster report: Help hold
NASA accountable") reports another example of "system failure" in American
society, suggesting the public and our leaders don't know enough about
the theory and practice of systems management needed to reduce if not avoid
system errors.
NASA's errors cost seven lives.
Virginian-Pilot
September 3, 2003, Wednesday
Bar-Code Technology at Hampton, Va., Hospital Helps Prevent Overdoses
HAMPTON, Va.--Supermarkets have used bar-code scanners to monitor
their merchandise for years. Now, nurses at the VA Medical Center in Hampton
use similar technology to prevent overdoses.
Wielding a scanner that looks like a toy gun, registered nurse Dorothy
Frazier matches bar codes printed on medicine bottles with those stamped
on her patients' ID bracelets.
A computer confirms if Frazier is giving the right medication -- at
the appropriate time and the correct dose.
The Virginian-Pilot
September 3, 2003 Wednesday Final Edition
Va Hospitals Set New Safety Bar; Technology to Protect Patients
Serves as Model for Country
Supermarkets have used bar-code scanners to monitor their merchandise
for years. Now, nurses at the VA Medical Center in Hampton use similar
technology to prevent overdoses.
Wielding a scanner that looks like a toy gun, registered nurse Dorothy
Frazier matches bar codes printed on medicine bottles with those stamped
on her patients' ID bracelets.
A computer confirms if Frazier is giving the right medication - at
the appropriate time and the correct dose.
If Frazier makes a mistake, a laptop computer on her medication cart
flashes an alert.
Geriatric Times
September 1, 2003
Peer Review: Will More Statutes Make It Work?
Utilization Review Committees
When the Medicare law was enacted in 1965, it basically left quality
issues up to hospitals and extended-care facilities (now known as skilled
nursing facilities). The Medicare statute said that the hospital or extended-care
facility had to establish a utilization review (UR) committee. This committee's
principal function was to determine the appropriateness of admission to
the facility, length of stay and quality of the professional services rendered.
These statutes required the facility to govern itself relative to costs
and quality.
It can be said that this peer review effort had negligible impact.
During the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA 87) debate over
regulations governing psychopharmacological medications, I learned why.
One of the letters supporting the regulation was from a physician who wrote:
"Gone are the days of the U.R. luncheon." He was referring to the practice
in the 1960s and '70s when nursing home administrators would take a physician
to lunch in exchange for his signature stating that a UR committee meeting
had been conducted. This behavior did not exactly display the attitude
that the U.S. Congress hoped for when it asked hospitals and nursing homes
to govern themselves through a utilization review process.
Nursing Economics
September 1, 2003
Lessons from aviation: teamwork to improve patient safety; Patient
Safety
Executive Summary
* Medical errors may contribute to as many as 44,000 to 98,000 deaths
per year. * Effective teamwork may serve to avoid and manage error and
also address increasing staff shortages, the growing need for cost reduction,
and increasing patient expectations.
* The Institute of Medicine and others have encouraged health care
providers to look to the aviation industry because of its long history
of measuring and improving teamwork to prevent and mitigate errors.
MOST HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS now recognize that medical errors t are
a significant problem. Errors are frequent, costly, and may lead to adverse
events. Errors may contribute to as many as 44,000 (Thomas et al., 1999)
to 98,000 (Leape, Lawthers, Brennan, & Johnson, 1993) deaths per year,
according to estimates by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) (Kohn, Corrigan,
& Donaldson, 1999). With prompting from groups such as the IOM, Joint
Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, The Leapfrog
Group, The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and others, providers
are mobilizing to reduce errors and improve patient safety.
St. Cloud Times (St. Cloud, MN)
August 31, 2003 Sunday
System to track medical errors
State officials anticipate September launch for effort to boost hospitals'
accountability
By Kate Kompas
kkompas@stcloudtimes.
A new system that regulates how the state will track medical errors
at hospitals could start in September.
The system will empower the health department to make hospitals more
accountable, said Mike Tripple, assistant director of hospital and nursing-home
regulation for the state.
There isn't enough money yet to pay for the system, which will require
hospitals to report 27 of the most-serious medical mistakes. They are known
as the "never" incidents in hospitals, meaning they should never happen.
National statistics show they too often do.
The Washington Post
August 31, 2003 Sunday Correction Appended Final Edition
It's Hard to Do No Harm When You've Had No Sleep
Most of us have some moment in our past when we went off the deep end
and said or did exactly what we wanted, manners and consequences be damned.
Some of us look back at this moment with satisfaction. Last week, after
hearing the news that one of the nation's most famous hospitals had been
cited for overworking its medical residents and in small ways making it
difficult for them to do their job, I recalled my moment with a mixture
of exhilaration and vindication.
It came in the spring of 1990. I was a second-year resident, splitting
my time between the old (and now gone) Veterans Affairs hospital in Baltimore
and the University of Maryland Hospital. I was working in the VA's "screening
clinic," where patients with non-critical illnesses waited in large numbers
to be seen. The clinic had nearly a dozen rooms, each with an examining
table, desk, two chairs and, attached to the wall, a squeeze-bulb blood
pressure cuff.
CORRECTION-DATE: September 05, 2003, Friday
CORRECTION:
An Aug. 31 Outlook article about the stresses of medical training incorrectly
stated that about 100 people are accepted each year into the internal medicine
residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The correct number is 36 people accepted
out of more than 1,000 applicants. The total number of people in the three-year
residency program ranges from 106 to 108.
Federal News Service
August 18, 2003 Monday
The Mclaughlin Group
Host: John Mclaughlin
Joined By: Tony Blankley, Patrick Buchanan, Susan Dentzer and Robert
Laszewski
Taped: Thursday, July 31, 2003 Broadcast: Weekend of (Date)
Mr. Mclaughlin: Issue One: Prescription Relief.
President George W. Bush: (From videotape.) Economic security for America's
seniors is threatened by the rising cost of prescription drugs. I'm pleased
that both houses of Congress have responded by passing separate bills providing
prescription drug coverage under Medicare. It's absolutely essential that
the House and the Senate resolve their differences and enact a piece of
legislation I can sign.
Mr. Mclaughlin: How best to add prescription drugs to Medicare is being
sweated out by both chambers of Congress in a conference committee that
reconvenes in the fall. It's proving to be a Herculean task on both the
level of policy and complexity. This is an overhaul -- the biggest since
Medicare's inception 38 years ago -- at a cost of $400 billion dollars
over 10 years.
Federal News Service
August 14, 2003 Thursday
Remarks by Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Senator John Edwards
(D-nc) and Senator Bob Graham (D-fl) at Iowa Health Care Forum
Moderator: Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack (D)
Location: Drake University, Desmoine, Iowa
GOV. VILSACK: Each of the last two speakers has indicated their background
in medicine. I'm frank to say, all I've been is a patient and a payer.
(Laughter.) Our next speaker to join us this afternoon is Governor Howard
Dean from Vermont. (Applause.)
GOV. DEAN: Thank you. Tom told me that he almost introduced me as Governor
Dean from Iowa. (Laughter.) And I've been here so often, I think I have
a right to vote in the caucus, we're just trying to figure out which one.
(Laughter.)
Let me say some thank yous before we start. Let me thank Tom Vilsack
and his extraordinary staff for putting this together. This is a real service
to the country, and we appreciate it. (Applause.) Let me thank all these
incredible purple-and-yellow shirts who have been to every meeting I've
been to in Iowa, anywhere I've been. And Andy Stern, the head of the SEIU
is here and the SEIU for sponsoring this. Where is Andy? You're around
somewhere. (Applause.) Let me thank AstraZeneca, who also is a cosponsor
of this, and we'll try not to beat you up too bad. (Laughter.)
Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, NJ)
August 3, 2003 Sunday X Edition
Looking for a good hospital? Try asking a doctor
By ANGELA RUCKER
Courier-Post Staff
When you're trying to find a good hospital, the best person to ask
for advice might be a good doctor.
"That's a huge factor in driving patients,' explained Dr. Charles Dennis,
chairman of the Department of Cardiology at Deborah Heart and Lung Center
in Browns Mills.
Advice from a doctor trumps the Internet, pamphlets and guides, and
insurance companies in helping patients decide what hospital they'll use.
This comes just as the increasingly demanding consumer is trying to learn
more about how he or she will fare as a patient.
Best's Review
August 1, 2003
Critical condition: the nursing shortage is sparking new interest
in nurses' liability insurance and maybe higher prices; Property/Casualty;
Industry Overview
A national nursing shortage that's nearing a critical level is increasing
the responsibilities and liability risks nurses face.
An example of the growing number of medical-liability suits against
nurses is a case involving a 78-year-old woman who was badly burned by
a steam vaporizer. The nurse responsible for leaving the vaporizer by the
woman's bedside was found negligent for failing to safeguard and protect
her patient from foreseeable danger.
As the nursing shortage escalates, some industry experts believe that
low staffing is leading to increased sales of nurses' and hospital liability
policies and might be a factor in rising premiums.
Looming Problem
Although there are nearly 2.5 million registered nurses employed in
the United States today, nearly 1.75 million more nurses will be needed
to fill vacant positions by 2010.
Canadian Healthcare Manager
August, 2003
A changing paradigm: it's time to consider ehealth investments
in terms of Return on Patient Safety
Traditionally, the healthcare sector has framed discussions and investment
decisions regarding information technology (IT) in primarily financial
terms. In particular, the potential of IT to provide a Return on Investment
(ROI) through the automation of certain functions or its ability to decrease
unnecessary tests and time-consuming paperwork has been the focus.
Managed Care Weekly Digest
July 28, 2003
ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS: Group agrees on healthcare data standards
Connecting for Health, a collaboration of more than 100 public and
private stakeholders representing every part of the healthcare system,
recently released the results of their efforts to bring electronic connectivity
to healthcare to improve patient care, lower costs, and protect privacy.
Their achievements in just 9 months toward the adoption of healthcare
data standards represents progress that has eluded the healthcare industry
for more than a decade. Despite a pace and a set of goals that many thought
hard to achieve, Connecting for Health announced unprecedented progress
in several key areas including:
1) Achieving consensus on an initial set of healthcare data standards
and commitment from more than 50 national healthcare leaders, including
a number of federal government agencies to adopt;
2) Identifying and studying a number of noteworthy privacy and security
practices in order to describe and disseminate feasible solutions currently
in use;
3) Defining the key characteristics and benefits of consumer-controlled
Personal Health Records (PHRs), addressing consumer concerns to allow people
to have better access to their health information.
Connecting for Health was convened by the Markle Foundation to serve
as a catalyst for changes that can rapidly clear the way for the private
and secure use of health information to improve quality, patient safety,
and enable patients to become better partners in their care. The Markle
Foundation provided the initial funding of $2 million for Connecting for
Health.
MarketWatch
July 21, 2003 Monday
It's time to digitize healthcare
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mike Ruettgers is Executive Chairman of EMC Corp. (EMC)
HOPKINTON, Mass. (CBS.MW) -- State lawmakers have gathered in San Francisco
this week for the 28th annual meeting of the National Conference of State
Legislators to tackle the daunting and urgent agenda of budget shortfalls,
exploding healthcare costs, education funding, and terrorism preparedness.
A new fiscal survey by the National Governors Association found that
37 states have been forced to reduce their already enacted budgets by nearly
$14.5 billion-the largest spending cut since 1979. And the future
is not looking any brighter. According to the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, the states face deficits for the 2004 fiscal year that
exceed $70 billion.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
July 19, 2003 Saturday FINAL EDITION
A blueprint for patient safety; Planned layout of new facility
near West Bend hailed as revolutionary
Health care industry officials throughout the United States are describing
the design of a new St. Joseph's Community Hospital of West Bend as the
blueprint for a revolution in patient safety.
No other entire hospital has been designed room by room and floor by
floor with a primary focus on preventing medical errors and infections
and providing a safe, quiet healing environment.
"This is revolutionary," said Robert Krawisz, executive director of
the National Patient Safety Foundation in Chicago. "It really is a breakthrough
in hospital design."
Lancaster New Era
July 18, 2003, Friday
'Yes' marks the spot; Write on! With medical errors alarmingly
on the rise, local hospitals are requiring patients to label surgical sites
before operations.
Nick Mondo took a blue pen this morning, leaned down and wrote the
word "YES" on his left leg, just below his knee, as he sat on a bed in
the presurgical area at Lancaster General Hospital.
"Should I draw an arrow?" the 21-year-old masonry worker from Reamstown
asked a nurse.
Mondo was getting screws and plates put in his left ankle, which has
been in a cast since he broke it in a car accident Friday. The arrow wasn't
necessary, a nurse told him, but the "YES" was.
Tampa Tribune
July 12, 2003, Saturday, FINAL EDITION
Information Technology Decreases Medical Malpractice
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature are in the midst of a contentious
debate about how to treat the medical liability disease that has infected
the providers of health care. Their treatment argument revolves around
how much money to dispense to salve the pain created by mistakes or malicious
acts.
What if the majority of the events that are subject of the seemingly
intractable "malpractice" debate were found to be not individual practitioner
errors or evil at all? What if these "mistakes" were really artifacts of
a health care industry that has expanded knowledge beyond the capacity
of the provider to know and do?
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
July 9, 2003 Wednesday
Committee: Senate Joint Economic
Costs of Health Technology
Statement of Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D. Commissioner - U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA)
Committee on Senate Joint Economic
July 9, 2003
Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I am Dr. Mark
B. McClellan, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, and I welcome this opportunity
to testify before the Committee today. As we enter the 21st century, America
leads the world in developing and commercializing new medical innovations
and technologies. From information technology to biotechnology to materials
science, United States (U.S.) scientists and high technology workers are
making new discoveries and developing new products every day that are steadily
improving the quality of our lives. This progress is critical to our health
and our economic prosperity.
AORNJournal
July 1, 2003
Incident reports--their purpose and scope; Home Study Program.
Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on incident reports.
Part II, which is scheduled for the August 2003 issue of the AORN Journal
will discuss correction processes and how to reduce errors.
Horrible headlines in the mass media about medical errors are rampant
these days. Everyone has read or heard about the wrong surgery being performed
on a child or the wrong side of a brain being operated on by a neurosurgeon.
What about the patient who died from an overdose of chemotherapy? These
stories captivate people and send chills down their spines because that
patient could have been them or a family member. (1)
Patients today are savvy, educated consumers who are concerned about
the potential for acquiring an infection, the level of care they receive,
and the qualifications of their health care providers. They believe that
most medical errors are the result of the carelessness or negligence of
their health care providers, whom they believe to be overworked, worried,
or stressed. (2) Most Americans, however, do not understand fully the breadth
of health care issues. Health care today is a complex system comprised
of numerous intricate parts that interact with multiple other parts in
unexpected ways. Various levels of specialization and interdependencies
exist in institutions. This places health care facilities at high risk
for accidents. (1,3)
TheBBI Newsletter
July 1, 2003
Nursing shortage has multifaceted impact on critical-care areas.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
(AACN; Aliso Viejo, California) held its 30th annual National Teaching
Institute (NTI) for the first time ever in San Antonio in mid-May. In light
of continued national security advisories and travel hassles, the AACN
was concerned that attendance would be down but was pleased that there
were some 6,000 attendees. The focus on the previously acknowledged nursing
shortage was evident throughout the event. According to a March 2000 study
conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, there are 403,527
nurses in the U.S. who care for critically ill patients in a hospital setting.
Of this number, 201,833 work at least half time in an intensive care unit,
while 70,241 work at least half time in a step-down or transitional care
unit, 94,912 work at least half time in an emergency department and 36,541
work at least half time in post-operative recovery units (Table 4). Critical-care
nurses comprise about 31% of the total number of nurs es working in asetting.
The BBI Newsletter
July 1, 2003
Nursing shortage has multifaceted impact on critical-care areas.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses
(AACN; Aliso Viejo, California) held its 30th annual National Teaching
Institute (NTI) for the first time ever in San Antonio in mid-May. In light
of continued national security advisories and travel hassles, the AACN
was concerned that attendance would be down but was pleased that there
were some 6,000 attendees. The focus on the previously acknowledged nursing
shortage was evident throughout the event. According to a March 2000 study
conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, there are 403,527
nurses in the U.S. who care for critically ill patients in a hospital setting.
Of this number, 201,833 work at least half time in an intensive care unit,
while 70,241 work at least half time in a step-down or transitional care
unit, 94,912 work at least half time in an emergency department and 36,541
work at least half time in post-operative recovery units (Table 4). Critical-care
nurses comprise about 31% of the total number of nurs es working in a hospital
setting.
FDA Consumer
July 1, 2003
FDA works to reduce preventable medical device injuries.
Medical devices help to alleviate pain, overcome disability, and sustain
life. They also, on occasion, fail to operate properly or are misused in
ways that are associated with injuries and deaths.
Betty Davis' wheelchair, for example, caught fire, badly burning over
25 percent of her body in January 1999. A quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair
since 1976, the 65-year-old Tucson, Ariz., resident knows the importance
of a well-maintained machine that works as intended. "I'm a very active
quad," she says, but when the fire started, "all I could do was sit there
and watch my arms and legs burn."
Faulty wiring short-circuited the battery charger in Davis' wheelchair.
Davis says she put the chair on charge after a blinking light indicated
the battery was running low. But Davis detected a spark, and immediately
disconnected the charger. The spark, however, turned into a flame. Though
authorities don't know why, Davis' attempt to reach 911 through her emergency
medical pendant failed. Fortunately, a neighbor was nearby at the time
and threw water on her to extinguish the fire.
Healthcare Financial Management
July 1, 2003
Whistle-blowing: does anyone want to hear? Leadership and Management;
healthcare organizations should be more open to whistle-blowing from employees
The public outcry over the deceptive accounting practices of companies
such as Enron and WorldCom last year led some observers to question why
no one blew the whistle on these activities earlier. Ralph Nader responded,
"What amazes me is that there are thousands of people who could have been
whistle-blowers, from the boards of directors to corporate insiders to
the accounting firms to the lawyers working for these firms to the credit-rating
agencies.
All these people! Would a despotic dictatorship have been more efficient
in silencing them and producing the perverse incentives for them all to
keep quiet? The system is so efficient that there's a total silence. I
mean, the Soviet Union had enough dissidents to fill Gulags." (a)
Nader's comments are disturbing. The healthcare industry has experienced
its share of confidence-eroding events:
* The Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation (AHERF) declared
bankruptcy, and its former CEO was sentenced to prison for using restricted
assets to keep the not-for-profit organization afloat.
New Jersey Law Journal
June 23, 2003
Whose Malpractice Crisis Is It, Anyway? Lawyers, doctors and insurers
debate the proposed cap on verbal damages
The following are excerpts from a roundtable discussion held May 27
at Columbia Law School entitled, "The Colliding Realities of the Medical
Liability Insurance Crisis." A focus of debate was H.R. 663 the bill to
cap noneconomic damages in medical negligence cases, which was passed by
the House of Representatives in March and is pending in the Senate. Each
side was represented by a lawyer, a doctor and an expert on the insurance
industry. The moderators were William Sage, M.D., J.D., a professor at
Columbia Law School, and David Hechler, a staff reporter with the National
Law Journal. The full Webcast is at www.law.columbia.edu.
Participants in Favor of the Bill:
Victor Schwartz is a partner in the Washington office of Shook, Hardy
& Bacon of Kansas City, Mo., and is general counsel of the American
Tort Reform Association.
Dr. Yank Coble is president of the American Medical Association and
an endocrinologist in Jacksonville, Fla.
American Society of Law & Medicine, Inc. Journal of Law, Medicine
& Ethics
June 22, 2003
A dose of our own medicine: alternative medicine, conventional
medicine, and the standards of science; Ninth Annual Thomas A. Pitts Memorial
Lectureship in Medical Ethics, Medical University of South Carolina in
Charleston
The discussion about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is
sometimes rather heated. "Quackery!" the cry goes. A large proportion "of
unconventional practices entail theories that are patently unscientific."
(1) "It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative
medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine--conventional
and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested
and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or
may not work" (2) "I submit that if these treatments cannot withstand the
test of empirical research, ... then we have wasted a lot of time and effort.
The time has been wasted on all the people who have spent years learning
falsehoods about acupuncture points and the principles of homeopathy. And
the patients have wasted their time, money, and efforts receiving treatments
that were not what they were represented to be or were harmful." (3)
On a more conciliatory note, it is often proposed that some CAM modalities
may be acceptable, but only those that stand up to the test of science.
For instance, the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative
Medicine Policy, established in March 2000 by President Bill Clinton, concluded
that "conventional and CAM systems of health and healing should be held
to the same rigorous standards of good science." (4) More precisely, "[t]he
same high standards of quality, rigor, and ethics must be met in both CAM
and conventional research, research training, publication of results in
scientific, medical, and public health journals, presentations at research
conferences, and review of products and devices." (5)
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 20, 2003 Friday
Nursing shortage endangers patients through medical errors
Though a tragic mistake that takes or shortens a patient's life sometimes
makes the news - as it did recently with the widely reported death of an
organ transplant patient - Americans expect to leave hospitals having received
excellent care and well on the way to recovery. That's an increasingly
dubious expectation as the nursing shortage advances from severe to critical.
Hospital staff nurses say the shortage is now the biggest problem in
hospitals today, putting both patients and nurses at risk. There are more
than 130,000 registered nurse vacancies today, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics projects that by 2010 the total number of job openings will
exceed a million. In Iowa, there already are vacancies for an estimated
2,600 registered nurses, 700 licensed practical nurses and 2,600 non-licensed
nursing support personnel.
Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)
June 14, 2003 Saturday, Georgia Edition
LEGISLATURE King, James
Senate President Jim King already has declared the special session
next week to be an exercise in futility and it hasn't even begun.
But, it does not have to be futile.
There are 13 votes in favor of the plan by Gov. Jeb Bush to address
the medical malpractice insurance crisis, according to headcounters. They
include stalwart Republican Sen. Steve Wise of Jacksonville.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
June 12, 2003, Thursday, Metro Edition
Coleman panel studies medical errors; Experts call for "relentlessly
high standards for patient safety" in health care.
Less than two weeks after a state report linked a 2-year-old's death
to an accidental overdose in one of his hospitals, Fairview Health Services
Chairman David Page told a congressional subcommittee Wednesday that his
hospital's systems had failed.
"We're not certain how or whether the overdose may have contributed
to her death," Page told the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
chaired by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. "We are certain that our systems
allowed a tenfold overdose and failed a conscientious staff, a patient
and the patient's family."
FDCH Political Transcripts
June 11, 2003 Wednesday
Type: Committee Hearing
Committee: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-mn) Holds Hearing on Patient Safety
Speaker: U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-mn), Chairman
Location: Washington, D.c.
Witnesses: Roxanne Goeltz, Burnsville, Minnesota Dr. James P. Bagian,
M.d. P.e., Director, National Center for Patient Safety, U.s. Department
of Veterans' Affairs Dr. Dennis S. O'leary, M.d., President, Joint Commission
on Accreditation of Healthcare, Organizations Dr. Carolyn M. Clancy, M.d.,
Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.s. Department of
Health and Human Services David R. Page, President & Chief Executive
Officer, Fairview Health Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota Robert E. Krawisz,
Executive Director, National Patient Safety Foundation Dianne Mandernach,
Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Health Dr. Suzanne Delbanco, Ph.d.,
Executive Director, the Leapfrog Group
U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee: Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations Holds a Hearing on Patient Safety
June 11, 2003
Speakers: U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-mn) Chairman U.s. Senator Ted
Stevens (R-ak) U.s. Senator George V. Voinovich (R-oh) U.s. Senator Arlen
Specter (R-pa) U.S. Senator Robert F. Bennett (R-ut) U.s. Senator Peter
Fitzgerald (R-il) U.s. Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-al) U.s. Senator John
E. Sununu (R-nh) U.s. Senator Carl Levin (D-mi) Ranking Member U.s. Senator
Daniel K. Akaka (D-hi) U.s. Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-il) U.s. Senator
Thomas R. Carper (D-de) U.s. Senator Mark Dayton (D-mn) U.s. Senator Frank
Lautenberg (D-nj) U.s. Senator Mark Pryor (D-ar)
COLEMAN: This hearing is called to order. I'll begin my opening
statement, and then turn to the distinguished ranking member of this committee,
Senator Levin. And then we'll go to the testimony of the witnesses.
National Law Journal
June 9, 2003
Whose malpractice crisis? Doctors, lawyers and insurance experts debate
a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical negligence suits.
This newspaper and Columbia Law School co-sponsored a roundtable debate
on May 27, "The Colliding Realities of the Medical Liability Insurance
Crisis." The moderators were William Sage, M.D., J.D., a professor at Columbia
Law School, and National Law Journal staff reporter David Hechler. A focus
of the discussion was the bill in Congress that would cap noneconomic damages
in medical negligence cases. It passed in the House of Representatives
in March and is pending in the Senate. Each side was represented by a lawyer,
a doctor and an expert on the insurance industry. Excerpts appear below.
The full Webcast is at www.law.columbia.edu.
David Hechler: If a bill that caps noneconomic damages in medical negligence
cases becomes federal law, how will it affect doctors, patients, lawyers
and insurance companies?
Dr. Richard Anderson: Patients will have access to critical care, to
emergency care, to innovative procedures when they need them. And they
will have access across the United States-not only in those favored venues
that have already enacted these tort reforms. Insurers will be able to
provide a stable market for the sale of medical malpractice insurance.
Lawyers would live in a world in which they could still make a good living
as medical malpractice attorneys, but they would not be able to become
infinitely wealthy, while continuing to lose 80% of their cases.
Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
June 6, 2003 Friday
Neck manipulation study flawed
Ricketts Clinic of Chiropractic, 1400 University Ave.
The article, "Study: Neck manipulations contribute to
stroke" (May 19) provides little useful information and needlessly alarms
the public about a safe and effective form of alternative health care.
Business Wire
June 5, 2003, Thursday
Connecting For Health Unites Over 100 Organizations To Bring American
Healthcare System into Information Age
Connecting for Health:
-- Group Agrees on Healthcare Data Standards; Identifies
Noteworthy Privacy and Security Practices and Defines Personal Health Records
-- Demonstration Project Unveiled to Save Lives, Reduce
Medical Errors, and Accelerate Detection of Bioterrorism
-- Survey Results Find that Consumers Want Doctors to
Share Health Information With Them and Protect Their Privacy
Connecting for Health, an extraordinary collaboration
of more than 100 public and private stakeholders representing every part
of the health care system, today released the results of their efforts
to bring electronic connectivity to healthcare to improve patient care,
lower costs and protect privacy. Their achievements in just nine months
toward the adoption of healthcare data standards represents progress that
has eluded the healthcare industry for more than a decade. Despite a pace
and a set of goals that many thought hard to achieve, Connecting for Health
announced unprecedented progress in several key areas including:
-- Achieving consensus on an initial set of healthcare
data standards and commitment for their adoption from a wide variety of
national healthcare leaders, including a number of federal government agencies;
-- Identifying and studying a number of noteworthy privacy
and security practices in order to describe and disseminate feasible solutions
currently in use;
-- Defining the key characteristics and benefits of consumer-controlled
Personal Health Records (PHRs), addressing consumer concerns to allow people
to have better access to their health information.
The Morning Call, Inc. Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
June 1, 2003 Sunday FIRST EDITION
Preventive medicine; Hospitals try a variety of high- and low-tech
methods to cut down on mistakes.
It used to be a joke patients played on their surgeons -- writing
"cut here" on a body part before an operation.
Now, it's a requirement at area hospitals and surgery
centers.
To prevent potentially deadly medical mistakes and costly
lawsuits, health care workers are trying every prescription in the medicine
cabinet -- from inexpensive markers to multimillion-dollar scanners.
Whether the gadgets are a better way to make hospitals
safer than bolstering the nursing staff -- a need physicians say is crucial
-- remains in question. But markers, bar-coded identification bracelets
and ATM-like medicine dispensers are appearing on patient floors for good
reason.
Dolan Media Newswires The Daily Record of Rochester
(Rochester, NY)
May 29, 2003 Thursday
Monroe County Bar Assn. panel debates tort reform legislation
Members of the legal and medical community shared
their thoughts on medical malpractice legislation and the current
tort reform proposals in a panel discussion hosted by the Monroe
County Bar Association on Thursday, May 22, 2003.
The discussion focused on proposed legislation at both the state and
federal level which would cap the noneconomic losses, or pain and
suffering damages, in medical malpractice cases at $250,000. Current
federal legislation has passed in the House of Representatives and
is now before the U.S. Senate. A similar bill is pending before the
State Senate and Assembly.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle All Rights Reserved Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle
May 27, 2003 Tuesday
BUSINESS OF HEALTH
Reduce medical errors to cut malpractice insurance rates. Stephen
G. Schwarz Guest Essayist
In a recent Speaking Out essay, Drs. Steven Hanks and
Derek tenHoopen alleged that medical malpractice suits are draining the
life out of health care in this state. They make a variety of statements
that require a response because these statements are unsupported by the
facts.
Drs. Hanks and tenHoopen allege that up to half of the
dollars awarded in liability cases in New York state wind up in the hands
of trial attorneys rather than in the pockets of the injured.
Newsday, Inc. Newsday (New York)
May 21, 2003 Wednesday NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
Rx for Lawsuit Pain?; Docs rally for laws setting limits on malpractice
awards
Under the shade of pine trees at Heckscher Park in Huntington,
at least 200 doctors in white coats gathered to get out a dire message.
Unless there's medical malpractice reform, they threatened there will be
fewer obstetricians to deliver babies, fewer qualified individuals becoming
physicians and more patients possibly dying.
They said this despite statistics showing that New York
State has no shortage of physicians. The demonstration was one of 21 yesterday
organized by the Medical Society of the State of New York. One was in Nassau,
at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow. Many doctors canceled their afternoon
appointments in order to attend.
InformationWeek
May 19, 2003
Mission: Critical
-- Imagine 30% fewer deaths in intensive-care units and half
the medication errors in hospitals. IT is poised to deliver improved
patient care.
Dr. Daniel Ikeda is about two miles
away, trying to monitor the well-being of more than two dozen patients,
including the one in trouble. Ikeda and a registered nurse sit at
workstations, scanning several computer displays of information,
including real-time vital signs in what's called the electronic intensive-care
unit. An alert sounds, signaling that the patient's vital signs have
changed. Ikeda checks what surgery has been done and can even look at the
patient using a Webcam in the room. He calls a nurse on the floor to start
intravenous fluids and a stronger antibiotic, and he tells an assistant
to call a surgeon. Emergency surgery begins around midnight.
Texas Lawyer
May 19, 2003
Does Texas Need Tort Reform and How Much Is Enough?
Editor's note: The Texas Legislature is poised to pass a tort
reform bill before it adjourns on June 2. A bill passed by the House and
a bill considered by the Senate would make several changes in how suits
are tried, including greater caps on damages and a new, lower interest
rate on judgments. The proposals also address an offer of settlement rule
and new rules for class-action suits. The changes are controversial, with
litigators on the two sides of the docket agreeing on little about the
proposals and whether they're necessary in Texas. On May 5, Texas Lawyer
brought five Texas lawyers together in Austin for a roundtable discussion
on tort reform. The lawyers talked about the need for tort reform, how
proposed caps on damages would be applied and the value of changes in the
jury system. A transcript of the discussion, edited for length and style,
follows. Part two of the discussion will appear in the May 26 issue of
Texas Lawyer.
Texas Lawyer: . . . Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, senior
reporter,
Do we need tort reform in Texas, and why? And how much tort reform
is the right amount?
The Christchurch Press
May 15, 2003 FT-ACC-NO: A20030516200-4A75-GNW
DATA IS SKIN DEEP
Would you put a microchip under your skin that gives
access to personal data? There are medical benefits, but privacy
concerns, too, writes DAVID KILLICK.
I've got you ... under my skin." New technology gives the old
Cole Porter song new meaning.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
May 14, 2003 Wednesday
The headline reads: Can you read your doctor's handwriting?
Seminar will coach medical pros on improving penmanship.
by Staff Writer Matt Leingang
Some will be shamed. Others might scoff at being treated
like second-graders.
But when dozens of local doctors show up at a seminar
Thursday to improve their handwriting, they will tackle one of the medical
profession's most serious, and sometimes deadly, problems: illegible penmanship.
Medical Economics
May 9, 2003
Tort reform isn't enough: It may help fix the malpractice crisis, but
it won't prevent medical errors and system failures; The Way I See It.
President Bush, congressional leaders, and the American
Medical Association rightly claim that our medical liability system is
broken, and needs repair. One major reason, they believe, is that the courts
are overrun by frivolous lawsuits, resulting in outrageously high awards
that are driving up malpractice premiums, and causing physicians to flee
certain states.
In fact, there are few truly frivolous malpractice
claims--meaning those wholly without merit. Frivolous litigation does flourish
in workers' compensation, auto accident, and product liability cases, but
it's relatively rare in medical liability.
News Observer (Raleigh, NC)
May 8, 2003 Thursday, FINAL EDITION
Hospitals are curing mistakes
CHAPEL HILL -- We have experienced tremendous advances
in health care during the past century. In 1900, the average man in the
United States lived 46.3 years; the average woman 48.3 years. One hundred
years later, the average man lives 73.9 years and the average woman 79.4
years. This reflects a tremendous increase in our understanding of disease
and in treatment options.
The Miami Herald
May 6, 2003, Tuesday
Study reveals widespread medical, prescription errors in 5 countries
MIAMI _ One-fourth of patients with health problems in five
countries say they suffered from a medical mistake or prescription error
in the past two years, a Harvard-led study reports in an issue of Health
Affairs published Tuesday.
Medical errors have been a hot topic for the past three
years, since the Institute of Medicine estimated that mistakes may kill
44,000 to 98,000 Americans a year.
The latest report shows the problems persist in countries
with widely different health systems _ and get worse the more doctors a
patient sees.
Of those who visit three or more doctors a year, the study
found, one in three surveyed said they had suffered from a medication or
medical error.
The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
May 5, 2003 Monday
Speak your mind; Memorial Medical Center's 'It's OK to Ask' program
promotes better interaction between patients, caregivers
Memorial Medical Center wants its patients to ask questions
about their care and not feel bashful when requesting help.
But such revelations should make it no surprise that Memorial
is promoting greater interaction between sick people and their busy caregivers
through a new program called, "It's OK to Ask."
St. John's Hospital has adopted the "Speak Up" title in
its own patient-safety program.
"Health care for a long time has been somewhat less than
patient-focused," said James Bente, Memorial's vice president for quality
and organizational development. "That's a strange thing to say ... but
we really didn't involve them closely in their care."
U.S. Government Printing Office FDA Consumer
May 1, 2003
Strategies to reduce medication errors: how the FDA is working to improve
medication safety and what you can do to help; Cover Story; Cover Story
When Jacquelyn Ley shattered her elbow on the soccer field
two years ago, her parents set out to find her the best care in Minneapolis.
"We drove past five other hospitals to get to the one we wanted," says
Carol Ley, M.D., an occupational health physician. Her husband, an orthopedic
surgeon, made sure Jacquelyn got the right surgeon. After a successful
three-hour surgery to repair the broken bones, Jacquelyn, who was 9 at
the time, received the pain medicine morphine through a pump and was hooked
up to a heart monitor, breathing monitor, and blood oxygen monitor. Her
recovery was going so well that doctors decided to turn off the morphine
pump and to forgo regular checks of her vital signs.
Carol Ley slept in her daughter's hospital room
that night. When she woke up in the middle of the night and checked on
her, Jacquelyn was barely breathing. "I called her name, but she wouldn't
respond," she says. "I shook her and called for help." The morphine pump
hadn't been shut down, but had accidentally been turned up high. The narcotic
flooded Jacquelyn's body. She survived the overdose, but it was a close
call. "If three more hours had gone by, I don't think Jacquelyn would have
survived," Ley says. "Fortunately, I woke up."
NEA Today
May 1, 2003
Preventing medical errors: NEA and the AFT team up to address troubling
healthcare issue; News; National Education Association; American Federation
of Teachers
When 17-year-old Jesica Santillan died Feb. 22 after receiving
transplanted organs with the wrong blood type, her death made headlines
across the country. But the same day, with little or no publicity, about
250 other people also died in U.S. hospitals as the result of medical errors--mistakes
which, like the one that killed Santillan, could have been prevented.
Between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year because
of medical errors during hospitalizations, according to a 1999 report from
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Even at
the low end of that range, the report noted, those numbers make medical
errors the nation's eighth leading cause of death, slightly ahead of car
accidents.
PR Newswire
April 29, 2003, Tuesday
Leading Health Industry Experts Offer Seven-Step Solution For Safer,
Better, and More Accountable Health Care; Authors George C. Halvorson of
Kaiser Permanente and George J. Isham, MD, Of HealthPartners Examine the
Impending Health Care Crisis -and Provide a Way to Solve It
Americans receive some of the best medical care in the world,
but the "miracles of modern medicine" often are applied inconsistently,
unsafely -- and at a price tag that is putting those miracles out of reach
for many purchasers and patients. Understanding the dynamics of health
care and how we solve the current health care crisis are the subjects of
the new book, Epidemic of Care: A Call for Safer, Better, and More Accountable
Health Care. The authors, George C. Halvorson, chairman
and chief executive officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals,
and George J. Isham, M.D., medical director and chief health officer of
HealthPartners, represent two of the nation 's leading and most esteemed
nonprofit health care organizations. Halvorson and Dr. Isham draw upon
their 50 years of combined leadership experience in health care to examine
in plain speech why health care costs so much, and why the results are
so inconsistent. Delving deeper into the issues surfaced
by a landmark Institute of Medicine report -- which revealed that between
44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year in hospital accidents -- the
authors discuss a number of insightful findings from recent health care
journals and reports. Most importantly, the authors take a hard look
at what Americans are really buying for their health care dollars:
* Fewer than 10 percent of patients with congestive
heart failure receive the care they need. The remaining 90 percent
are significantly more likely to suffer unnecessarily and die too soon
because they didn't receive best care.
Business Wire
April 25, 2003, Friday
VeriChip Subdermal Personal Verification Microchip to Be Featured at
IDTechEX ''Smart Tagging in Healthcare'' Conference in London, April 28-29,
2003
International Audience Will Also See First-Ever Demonstration
of Implantable Temperature-Sensing Microchip and Learn about Potential
Human Healthcare Applications
Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSX) an advanced
technology development company, announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary,
VeriChip Corporation, has been invited to make two presentations at the
upcoming IDTechEx "Smart Tagging in Healthcare" conference in London, April
28-29, 2003.
Dr. Richard Seelig, Vice President of Medical Applications
for VeriChip Corporation, will provide a live demonstration of VeriChip(TM)
and discuss its potential healthcare applications - which are subject to
regulation by the US Food and Drug Administration - including:
-- Implanted medical device identification
-- Emergency access to patient-supplied health information
-- Portable medical records access
-- In-hospital patient identification
-- Medical facility connectivity via patient
-- Patient/therapy integration
-- Inter-facility patient identification
-- Additional healthcare applications which are not Internet
dependent, including disease/treatment management of at-risk populations
Dr. Seelig will also provide the first-ever public demonstration
of a new temperature-sensing microchip technology, marketed, patented and
first announced by Digital Angel Corporation (AMEX: DOC) in February 2003.
This new Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchip has similar dimensions
and performance characteristics as VeriChip, but it can also obtain and
transmit body temperature data.
This technology for human healthcare applications is subject
to appropriate regulations in the US and other jurisdictions. The potential
healthcare applications of the new temperature-sensing microchip include,
but are not limited to, the following broad treatment categories:
-- Chemotherapy treatment management
Charleston Daily Mail (West Virginia)
April 25, 2003, Friday
Letters to the Editor There needs to be a memorial to malpractice victims
According to a National Academy of Sciences' Institute
of Medicine report, between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die in hospitals
each year as a result of medical mistakes - more than those who die of
car accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
I suggest that we build a Malpractice Memorial modeled
after the Vietnam Memorial.
The Tennessean
April 25, 2003 Friday 1st Edition
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Malpractice is caused by doctors, not lawyers
To the Editor:
Since Sen. Bill Frist asked to be addressed as doctor
rather than as senator, it should come as no surprise to his constituents
to hear him singing the medical profession's anthem when addressing the
issue of malpractice tort reform.
***
It is instructive to listen to lyrics of this anthem sung
by other tort reform proponents.
A Massachusetts doctor held a sign that read, "If your
doctor is not there, will your lawyer deliver your baby?" That might not
be a bad idea since between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die in hospitals
each year as a result of medical mistakes.
Incredibly, a South Carolina doctor said in reference
to a victim who lost both breasts after being misdiagnosed with breast
cancer, "She'll have breast reconstruction better than she had before."
That statement is unforgivably insensitive.
Los Angeles Times
April 21, 2003 Monday Home Edition
Series of Errors Led to Girl's Death, State Says; The toddler
entered UCLA Medical Center for routine surgery, but never recovered.
Just over a year ago, 16-month-old Delaney Lucille
Gonzalez walked with her family into UCLA Medical Center for routine surgery
to repair a cleft palate.
Three days later, she was disconnected from life support
and died in her mother's arms.
"To bring a healthy child in there for surgery so minor,"
her mother, Jodi, said recently, clutching a headband she had made for
Delaney, "you just don't accept that she's going to die."
The simple explanation is that a breathing tube had been
misplaced and had pumped air into the child's stomach rather than her lungs,
according to Delaney 's medical and autopsy records. Because her body was
deprived of oxygen, Delaney 's heart stopped. She suffered irreversible
brain damage.
News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
April 20, 2003 Sunday ALL EDITIONS
MALPRACTICE DEBATE: TREAT THE ILLNESS
In a North Carolina hospital, doctors fail to diagnose
a common, highly treatable case of jaundice in a newborn. When the oversight
is discovered, it is too late. She suffers irreparable brain damage. She
cannot talk. She is confined for the rest of her life to a wheelchair and
must be fed through a tube. The projected costs of a lifetime of assisted
care: $17 million.
In Minnesota, surgeons remove both breasts of a 46-year-old
woman who does not have cancer. The hospital confused her biopsy results
with someone else's.
April 8, 2003 Tuesday Five Star Late Lift Edition Correction
Appended
CARE MEANS MORE THAN CAPS
MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
* By pursuing excellence, instead of making excuses, doctors
can sharply reduce errors, cut costs and boost public confidence.
The debate over legislation limiting the size of malpractice
awards has turned into an emotional battle between doctors and lawyers.
It would be easier to root for physicians if lawsuits had not been so important
in pushing providers to confront quality problems.
As medical historian James Mohr has written, malpractice
litigation was in many ways a direct consequence of a professional failure
to enforce standards. Patients had no alternative but to "try to hold individual
practitioners, one at a time, to whatever standards they or their lawyers,
one at a time, wanted to impose."
Medical Post
April 8, 2003
Factoring for humans: anesthesiologists have led the way at designing
medical devices to reduce human error -- but other specialties are following
The airline and nuclear industries have long understood the importance
of designing their systems to account for human nature. In comparison,
another ''safety-critical'' field--medicine--has for the most part been
slow to catch on.
But the often problematic interaction between people and health-care
technology is getting more attention in the wake of the U.S. Institute
of Medicine's 1999 report ''To Err is Human,'' which estimated medical
errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans each year.
Dr. Kim Vicente (PhD), professor and director of the Cognitive Engineering
Laboratory at the University of Toronto and a visiting professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is one of the leading researchers
in human factors engineering--the design of technology to suit human
needs, rather than expecting people to adapt to the technology.
Morning Star (Wilmington, NC)
April 7, 2003, Monday
Doctors take insurance demands to Raleigh
His daughter is on the cusp of becoming an OB/GYN - the
kind of profession most parents would dream of for their children.
But Dr. Jim Markworth would prefer she practice in a medical
field with a brighter future, he said. The soaring cost of malpractice
insurance for obstetrics and gynecology - the health care of women, including
during pregnancy and childbirth - will soon be crushing, he said.
"I'm trying to talk her out of it," he said.
The Ledger (Lakeland, FL)
April 6, 2003, Sunday
CARE QUALITY A CONCERN IN DOCTOR ISSUE; BETTER REGULATION, INFORMATION
OPENNESS NEEDED, CRITICS SAY.; MALPRACTICE DEBATE
TALLAHASSEE -- Carl Flatley knows the health-care profession.
He was a dentist for 25 years.
But last year, Flatley saw a darker side of medicine when
his 23-year-old daughter underwent minor elective surgery in a Pinellas
County hospital. Erin, who was a graduate student, developed an infection.
It wasn't detected. She wasn 't treated until it was too late. And she
died.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida)
April 6, 2003 Sunday Venice Edition
Efforts to curb medical errors faltering; Consumers remain frustrated
at the lack of notice given towards physician; disciplinary issues.
Carl Flatley knows the health-care profession. He
was a dentist for 25 years.
But last year, Flatley saw a darker side of medicine when
his 23-year-old daughter underwent minor elective surgery in a Pinellas
County hospital. Erin, who was a graduate student, developed an infection.
It wasn't detected. She wasn 't treated until it was too late. And she
died.
"The cause of her death was listed as septic shock, but
what really killed her was negligence, arrogance and incompetence," Flatley
said.
Poughkeepsie Journal (Poughkeepsie, NY)
April 2, 2003 Wednesday Front Edition
State slow to censure errant doctors
When Taudrianna Gaton was born five years ago, seven
minutes passed before she could be coaxed to breathe -- the result, her
attorney says, of seven hours of ignored fetal distress. She was left catastrophically
damaged -- she is wheelchair-bound, legally blind and mentally incapacitated.
In December, a malpractice lawsuit filed against her delivering
obstetrician, pediatrician and hospital was settled for $4.1 million, which
will be used to provide her care over an expected 80-year lifetime, according
to court documents. It may be the largest malpractice payment ever made
in Ulster County.
The success of baby Gaton's case was, it seems, no fluke.
In 1999, Dr. Carlos Tejada, a Kingston obstetrician, pleaded guilty to
state charges of negligence and incompetence and agreed he would never
again deliver babies. One of two cases cited against him was that of Taudrianna
Gaton.
Governing Magazine
April, 2003
MEDICAL MAYHEM
When their malpractice insurance rates tripled two years ago,
leading doctors in Clark County, Nevada--obstetricians, gynecologists and
emergency room physicians--were so angry they walked out on their jobs.
Worrying about physicians paying inflated insurance premiums may not have
been the highest priority of Nevada legislators, but the threat of pregnant
women in Las Vegas driving 50 miles or more to have their babies delivered
was. So in the summer of 2002, Governor Kenny Guinn called a special session
of the legislature, and it unanimously passed a bill capping non-economic
damages--commonly known as pain and suffering--for most malpractice claims.
Legislators were assured by both doctors and the insurance companies that
the $350,000 cap was the best way to bring stability to the medical malpractice
market. They were wrong. Rates kept climbing. "The ink wasn't
dry" on the first bill, says Nevada Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley,
"before some physicians began an initiative process." Their petition would
tighten the pain-and-suffering cap and also impose severe limits on attorney
contingency fees--a version of California's 1975 medical malpractice law
that many physicians and most insurance companies consider the holy grail.
This time around, though, Nevada lawmakers are wary. Since its damage caps
failed to lower costs, the legislature is considering stricter regulation
of insurance companies.
HealthFacts
April 1, 2003
People are frequently injured by medical errors; Rx News.
It has been two and one-half years since the
Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued its groundbreaking report on medical
errors. Having been part of the IOM effort, I had high hopes that it would
finally force the health care system to confront the crisis in patient
safety with a sense of urgency. But as the months go by, I become less
and less convinced that a sufficient number of doctors and hospitals are
committed to doing whatever is necessary to stem the tide of death due
to medical mistakes. Instead, some have chosen to focus on debunking the
IOM 's calculations as unscientific and grossly exaggerated, thus denying
the problem exists rather than fixing it.
The IOM concluded that between 44,000 and 98,000
hospitalized patients suffer a fatal injury because of medical errors each
year. It has responded to its critics by pointing out that this is likely
an underestimate of the true dimensions of patient injury for several reasons.
First, the IOM's estimate is based on errors only in hospital care. In
other words, the type of care that is rapidly shifting into ambulatory
settings; and second, medical mistakes are well known to go unrecognized
and undocumented in hospital medical records.
News Observer (Raleigh, NC)
March 30, 2003 Sunday, FINAL EDITION
Malpractice fight brews
For the third time since the 1970s, North Carolina
doctors face surging medical malpractice insurance costs.
And once again, the doctors are warning that if something
isn't done to contain their soaring premiums, the problem will affect everyone
as physicians quit performing risky services, retire or even leave the
state.
The remedy prescribed by doctors, hospitals and nursing
home operators is a law to limit medical malpractice payments for pain
and suffering to $ 250,000. The cap, the doctors' groups say, would end
"runaway" jury awards and settlements that they say are driving insurance
rates up.
A bill to limit awards was introduced Thursday in the
state House of Representatives with the support of the state's largest
doctors organization and the backing of 72 lawmakers. A similar bill is
pending in the state Senate, where a special committee has been formed
to study the issue.
The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
March 26, 2003, Wednesday
Doctor: Learn from mistakes Expert speaks on patient safety at
Duke Hospital
Though patients are regularly injured or killed
from medical errors in American hospitals, most hospitals hide and blame
rather than confront and learn, according to a national patient safety
expert.
Effective patient safety systems must establish cultures
that focus on learning from mistakes and avoiding unnecessary punishment,
said physician James Bajian in a talk to Duke University Medical Center
personnel Tuesday.
Bajian, director of the Department of Veterans Affairs'
National Center for Patient Safety, is a former NASA astronaut and engineer
who flew on two shuttle missions and supervised the ocean recovery of the
capsule following the 1986 Challenger explosion. He is also helping in
the investigation of the Columbia shuttle break-up.
Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
March 22, 2003, Saturday
Legislation to benefit health care in state March 22, 2003, Saturday
The American health-care system is confronting a crisis.
The seemingly competing challenges of cost (insurance, prescription drugs,
technology and demographics) and quality (safety and effectiveness) must
be faced sooner or later. West Virginia is no different from other states,
but our task may be greater because of our economy, aging population and
the level of high-risk behaviors of our people.
The recent passage of H.B. 2122 (more commonly known as
the Medical Malpractice Bill) by the Legislature and subsequent signing
by Gov. Wise has been a source of relief to much of the physician community,
as well as to what appears to be a majority of the voting public. There
are those, however, who feel that the medical community has been given
much, but little has been done to oversee marginal physicians, and that
the overall quality of medical care could diminish with the advent of significant
tort reform.
National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent &
Disabled, Inc. Issues in Law & Medicine
March 22, 2003
Quiet killings in medical facilities: detection & prevention.
The purpose of this article is to prompt a
public discussion concerning the "quiet killings" that have occurred and
are occurring in our medical facilities, hopefully leading to a robust
debate over improving methods of detecting and preventing such killings.
The importance of this subject cannot be overstated, particularly in light
of the ever-increasing numbers of people who will be admitted to, or living
in, medical facilities as the first of the "baby boom" generation reaches
age sixty-five in the year 2011 (1) and the number of employees who have
routine access to these patients or residents. In 2000, hospital admissions
were over thirty-three million (2) and in 1999 nursing homes had 1.7 million
residents. (3) Hospital employees number over four million and nursing
home employees another 1.8 million. (4) To these institutions and people
having access may be added the residents of homes licensed to dispense
medication and all of the visitors to all of the facilities.
The article will provide evidence of these quiet
killings, define the scope of the problem they present, discuss some problems
in detecting, investigating and prosecuting these killings, and suggest
methods for detecting and preventing the killings. (5) Not only will the
implementation of methods for detecting and preventing such killings save
lives, such activity will save the reputation (and financial resources)
of health care professionals and medical facilities by reducing their exposure
to civil and criminal liability.
Federal News Service
March 20, 2003 Thursday
Hearing of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education
and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee
Subject: Health and Human Services Department Fiscal Year 2004 Budget
Chaired By: Representative Ralph Regula (R-oh)
Location: 2358-b Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.c.
Witnesses: Tommy Thompson, Secretary, Department of Health and Human
Services
REP. RALPH REGULA (R-OH): I'll tell you what, we've got about five
minutes. Mr. Secretary, why don't you make your opening statement and then
we'll have to recess for votes. Then we'll have -- there'll be two -- there'll
be a total of about 25 minutes because we have three votes after your --
but we have a little time before we need to leave.
MR. THOMPSON: All right.
REP. REGULA: How much time do you need?
MR. TOMMY G. THOMPSON: I was going to take 10 minutes.
But if you want me just to summarize some things --
Michigan Daily via U-Wire University Wire
March 19, 2003, Wednesday
U. Michigan seeks to prevent medical errors
The death of 17-year-old Jesica Santillan after she mistakenly
received incompatible organs during transplant surgery at Duke University
Medical Center has heightened concerns among medical providers and patients
about medical errors.
"All of us have been saddened and alarmed by the recent
event that occurred at the Duke University Medical Center. The only positive
outcome I can see from this tragedy is that it serves as a trigger for
other transplant programs to re-evaluate their policies and procedures,"
Darrell Campbell, University of Michigan Hospitals chief of clinical affairs
and a chair on the Patient Safety Committee, said in a written statement.
"Human error will always be with us, but it is our responsibility as a
health system to put enough fail-safe mechanisms in place that errors are
detected and remedied before serious harm is done."
Newsday (New York)
March 16, 2003 Sunday NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION
Quest For Answers; Renewed scrutiny of suspected medical errors
Barbara Desiderio still remembers the 1 a.m. phone
call from the hospital, the voice on the other end of the line saying her
son's condition had changed.
By the time she made it from Centerport to the hospital
early Dec. 6, 1995, Desiderio's 28-year-old son, Robert Jankowski, who
had struggled with asthma since childhood, was dead. And all hospital officials
could tell her was that he had suffered a sudden cardiac arrest.
Years later, when Desiderio scoured her son's medical
records, she discovered that hospital staff had given him Propulsid, a
heartburn medication with a label warning it was not to be mixed with the
antibiotics and antifungals Jankowski was on because it could trigger heart
problems and sudden death.
As the story of 17-year-old Jesica Santillan's botched
heart and lung transplant has captured the public's attention in recent
weeks, there has been renewed scrutiny brought to what some call an epidemic
of medical errors in U.S. hospitals. Shortly after Santillan's first surgery,
the Duke University Medical Center transplant team members made the stunning
admission that they had violated a basic rule of medicine - forgetting
to do a simple check of patient and donor blood type compatibility. Santillan,
who was from Mexico, died in Raleigh, N.C., on Feb. 22, two days after
receiving a second set of organs.
Dayton Daily News (Ohio)
March 15, 2003 Saturday CITY EDITION
GOOD BILL COVERS BID FOR DAMAGE CAPS
SOMETHING CALLED THE PATIENT SAFETY Improvement
Act was put to a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday.
It sounds good, and it passed overwhelmingly. Taking it up now was a nice
political move.
The Dallas Morning News
March 14, 2003, Friday SECOND EDITION
Fatal Slips; Greater transparency needed in medical cases
An organ transplant gone bad. Blood types
that didn't match. A young girl dead. And nearly a year later, no clear
answers as to what went wrong, only hospital officials, physicians and
lab technicians pointing fingers.
National Journal's CongressDaily
March 13, 2003 Thursday 10:30 am Eastern Time am
SECTION: HEALTH House OKs Medical Error Bill, Takes
Up Malpractice Suit Cap
The GOP-controlled House today takes up one of its featured pieces
of health legislation this session, a bill to impose federal limits
on medical malpractice suits that sponsors say will help lower spiraling
malpractice insurance premiums and opponents say will hurt patients.
The bill -- which has passed the House in various forms a half dozen
times since Republicans took over the chamber in 1995 -- would cap
non-economic "pain and suffering" damages at $250,000. It would also
limit attorney fees and cap punitive damages at $250,000 or twice
the amount of economic damages, whichever is greater.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
March 13, 2003 Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE APPROPRIATIONS CAUSES OF THE MEDICAL
LIABILITY INSURANCE CRISIS
Statement of Donald M. Berwick, MD President and CEO Institute for
Healthcare Improvement
Committee on Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and
Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
March 13, 2003
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here. I am President and CEO
of a nonprofit organization, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement,
whose mission is to accelerate improvement of health care systems.
I am also Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Health Care Policy
at Harvard Medical School.
I am here today as a representative of the Institute of Medicine of
The National Academies. I serve on the IOM's governing Council, and
I was a member of the IOM's Committee on Quality of Healthcare in
America, which wrote the two landmark reports on quality, To Err
Is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm. I believe that these and
subsequent IOM reports on quality offer this nation, and this Congress,
a superb blueprint for the redesign and improvement of our American
health care system.
United Press International
March 13, 2003 Thursday
FDA rules could improve patient safety
LEAD: The Food and Drug Administration unveiled
two proposed rules Thursday the agency said "are the start of a comprehensive
strategy to build a medical patient protection system for the 21st
century."
The first would require bar codes on certain drug labels and the second
would clarify existing guidelines drug makers must follow to report
adverse effects of their products.
FDA said the proposals are in line with a 1999 Institute of Medicine
report that cited bar codes as one method that could prevent deaths
attributed to medication errors, which seemed to be on the rise.
The institute estimated 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occurred per year
in the United States because of errors in surgical procedures, devices
and medications. About 7,000 of such deaths in 1993 were due to medication
mix-ups, the report said.
Facts on File World News Digest
March 12, 2003
Legislation:House Approves Medical Errors Registry; Other Development
The House March 12 passed, 418-6, a bill to create
a confidential registry of medical errors voluntarily reported to the federal
government. The legislation aimed to lower the incidence of medical mistakes
by compiling a database of errors that only health professionals could
access, allowing them to learn from the mistakes of their colleagues. Some
lawmakers from both parties said the bill did not contain firm enough regulations,
and argued that nonmandatory reporting weakened its efficacy. There was
widespread agreement, however, that the bill was a good first step.
Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
March 10, 2003 Monday Broward Metro Edition
TORT REFORM NOT THE ANSWER; JURY AWARDS ARE USUALLY APPEALED
AND SETTLED FOR LESS
One hot topic on the agenda of the current legislative
session is tort reform and a proposal to cap pain and suffering and other
non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000.
As a registered nurse, I've seen my share of incompetent
physicians. Every year, between 44,000 and 98,000 people die as a result
of medical mistakes.
News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
March 9, 2003 Sunday ALL EDITIONS
WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, WHO PAYS? JESICA'S SWEET SAD SONG PLAYS
ON
Seventeen-year-old Jesica Santillan was put to rest
Tuesday, but not the roiling controversy surrounding her tragic death.
Jesica died following an unthinkable transplant error
at Duke Hospital. She received a heart and lungs that did not match her
blood type. Following a frenetic scramble to undo the mistake, new organs
were found and another surgery performed. But it was too late.
Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
March 8, 2003 Saturday FIRST EDITION
Allentown protest faces obstacles; Safety issues hamper demonstration
against jury award caps.
A demonstration against caps on jury awards for
pain and suffering staged in front of U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey's Allentown
office Friday morning did not go as planned.
First, the big white bus bearing a blue cutout of the
Capitol and a sign blaming high medical malpractice insurance rates "on
insurance companies, not injured children" had to be parked in a less conspicuous
spot across the street from the private lot at Toomey's building.
Then, the Emmaus mother and brain-injured daughter who
were supposed to represent those harmed by such legislation didn't show
because of the cold.
Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
March 7, 2003, Friday
Tragic Medical nightmare March 7, 2003, Friday
DOWN in rural Mexico, truck-driver Melecio Santillan and his wife had a lovely but sickly daughter, Jesica. Local doctors couldn't cope with her rare heart disorder, so the desperate Santillans paid a "coyote" $ 5,000 to smuggle them into New Mexico. Speaking no English, they made their way to Louisburg, N.C., where relatives lived.
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) March 7, 2003 Friday
Final Edition FIXING MEDICAL ERROR A JOB FOR THE PROFESSION
To the Editor:
All conscionable physicians want to eliminate medical errors. Reports
of 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year from errors are indeed disconcerting.
USA TODAY
March 5, 2003, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
Special report: Hype outraces facts in malpractice debate
The symptoms are popping up in state after state: doctors carrying
picket signs, insurers jacking up premiums for malpractice insurance and
patients unable to find care. The diagnosis offered by doctors,
insurers, state legislatures and President Bush: The nation faces a medical
malpractice crisis that is driving insurance so high that some doctors
are leaving their practices. The causes, they say, are frivolous lawsuits
and runaway jury awards.
Their prescription is tort reform: limits on damages patients
can collect for pain and suffering when they persuade a jury that a doctor
botched their treatment. Bush is pushing for a federal law that would set
a $ 250,000 cap on damage awards for pain and suffering in states that
don't already have caps.
The Boston Herald
March 4, 2003 Tuesday ALL EDITIONS
Grieving dad fights malpractice award caps
A Pembroke father of a 3-month-old baby who died
after her surgery was delayed took his battle against malpractice award
caps to Washington yesterday.
John McCormack joined other patients and activists at
the American Medical Association's annual meeting to protest President
Bush's proposed $ 250,000 cap on "pain and suffering" malpractice penalties.
Bush is expected to speak to the group today on his health care policy
prescriptions.
Business Wire
March 4, 2003, Tuesday
PacifiCare Releases First-Ever QUALITY INDEX Profile of Hospitals
-- Quality and satisfaction ranked at more than 200 California
hospitals
-- Attempt to improve health-care quality and close the
variation in quality cited by the IOM
-- Profile encourages consumers to fully participate in
health-care decisions
PacifiCare of California, a health plan subsidiary of
PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:PHSY), today became the nation's
first health plan to publicly release wide-ranging data on the performance
of academic and community hospitals in its networks in terms of quality
of care and level of service.
PacifiCare's QUALITY INDEX(R) profile of Hospitals will
provide the health plan's 2 million California members with more detailed
information regarding hospital quality and service and provide incentives
for hospitals to improve performance, according to Howard G. Phanstiel,
president and chief executive officer of PacifiCare Health Systems.
"We listened to consumers and employers who are demanding
greater information concerning quality, service, and affordability at the
hospital level and have responded with the industry's first report concerning
hospital performance," said Phanstiel. "We believe that the QUALITY INDEX(R)
profile of Hospitals is a significant step in the industry's pursuit of
continuous quality improvement and accountability."
The Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
March 3, 2003 Monday, ALL EDITIONS
TO STOP MEDICAL ERRORS, INDUSTRY MUST FIRST ADMIT THERE'S A PROBLEM
JESICA SANTILLAN passed the point of no return at
precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon cut
open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life.
Newsweek
March 3, 2003, U.S. Edition
'A Tragic Error'
The calls began going out from Boston late on the
evening of Thursday, Feb. 6, and continued well into the following morning.
Somewhere in the six-state region covered by the New England Organ Bank
a young person was dying, and the bureaucratic machinery devised to salvage
life from death sprang into action. A coordinator entered the patient's
vital statistics into the database maintained by the United Network for
Organ Sharing (UNOS), which generated a ranked list of possible recipients
for the useful organs. Hearts and lungs begin to deteriorate after just
four to six hours outside the body, so the patients' location was one of
the key factors the UNOS program considered, along with medical condition,
body size and blood type. A heart in Miami may be useless in Seattle. A
child's heart cannot keep a full-grown man alive.
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
March 2, 2003 Sunday Home Edition
OUR OPINION: Girl's death may dim view of tort reform
In family snapshots, Jesica Santillan looks cheerful,
upbeat, even healthy, underlining the tragedy of her death. The 17-year-old
suffered from "restrictive cardiomyopathy," which enlarges the heart and
weakens the lungs.
Jesica's one fragile hope for recovery --- a heart-lung
transplant --- was doomed by an extraordinary mistake in the operating
room at Duke University Medical Center. Surgeons performed a second transplant,
but it was too late to save her. What must those days have been like for
Jesica's family?
Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tennessee) March 2, 2003
Sunday Final Edition Transplant case stirs malpractice
questions
Bill Frist, the only physician in the U.S. Senate, is hoping that his
years of work to reform medical malpractice liability is not crushed
by the death of 17-year-old botched transplant victim Jesica Santillan.
Frist said her death should not affect the proposal's chances of passage,
but the public outcry over her death suggests there will be a long
national debate on the issue before a majority agrees to certain
liability limits.
Santillan died from complications in two transplant operations after
she initially received a heart and lungs of the wrong blood type.
The Burlington Free Press (Burlington, VT)
February 28, 2003 Friday
Medical safety must be reformed
Jesica Santillan passed the point of no return at
precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon cut
open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life.
Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah)
February 28, 2003, Friday
SECTION: OPINION; Pg. A12
Doctors must battle 'banality of screw-up'
BOSTON -- Jesica Santillan passed the point of no
return at precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon
cut open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life.
The Times Union (Albany, NY)
February 28, 2003 Friday ONE STAR EDITION
Erring out our medical systems
Jesica Santillan passed the point of no return at
precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon cut
open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life. But on that afternoon, all the surgical skill, all
the training, all the high-tech machinery and experience at her service
in the Duke University Medical Center was undone by a mistake as basic
as the alphabet. Jesica, who had type O blood, was given organs from someone
with type A.
Transplant News
February 28, 2003
Death of teenage transplant recipient due to blood type mix-up
shines spotlight on medical errors; Jesica Santillan
A Mexican teenager brought to the US by her
parents in search of a life-saving heart-lung transplant died on February
22 because of a tragic mistake that resulted in her receiving organs with
the wrong blood type.
Despite heroic attempts to rectify the mistake with
a second transplant, 17-year-Jesica Santillan died at the Duke University
Medical School in Durham, NC.
News of the mix-up ignited a media firestorm that
included the vain effort to save Jesica with a second transplant, questions
about US policy for transplanting foreign non-residents, and finally, on
the great number of medical errors-44,000 to 98,000-- that occur in US
hospitals every year.
Duke pediatric transplant surgeon James Jaggers,
MD, who had known Jesica for 2 years and performed the transplant, took
full responsibility for accepting the mismatched organs.
"As Jessica's surgeon, I had hoped that when we
were offered organs from the donor service, that Jesica would be one of
those lucky few-that we would prolong and improve her life with a heart-lung
transplant," Jaggers said in a written statement. "Unfortunately, in this
case human errors were made during the process. As Jesica's surgeon I am
ultimately responsible for the team and for this error. I personally told
the Santillan family about the errors that were made and then tried to
do everything medically possible to treat Jesica and try to save her life."
The Baltimore Sun
February 27, 2003 Thursday FINAL Edition
Shining light on deadly problem of medical errors
BOSTON - Jesica Santillan passed the point of no
return at precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon
cut open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life.
The Boston Globe
February 27, 2003, Thursday ,THIRD EDITION
ELLEN GOODMAN; SAFEGUARDING AGAINST MEDICAL ERRORS
JESICA SANTILLAN passed the point of no return at
precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon cut
open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs, and
a new lease on life.
Charleston Daily Mail (West Virginia)
February 27, 2003, Thursday
It is human to make mistakes , It is necessary to install checks
to prevent them
BOSTON - Jesica Santillan passed the point of no return
at precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon
cut open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one.
After all, Jesica had been smuggled into this country
from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving her life. She had
waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine," as Durham, N.C.,
is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and a new lease on life.
FLORIDA TODAY (Brevard County, FL)
February 27, 2003 Thursday Final and all Editions
Learning from our many mistakes
Learning from our many mistakes
By Ellen Goodman
Syndicated Columnist
BOSTON -- Jesica Santillan passed the point of no return
at precisely 4:50 p.m. on Feb. 7. This was the moment when the surgeon
cut open the chest of the 17-year-old and removed her heart and lungs.
It's hard to overstate the drama of that moment in any
heart transplant, let alone this one. After all, Jesica had been smuggled
into this country from a small town in Mexico by parents intent on saving
her life. She had waited three years at the gates of the "City of Medicine,"
as Durham, N.C., is pridefully labeled, for a new heart, new lungs and
a new lease on life.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
February 27, 2003 Thursday
Capping compensation will just hurt
the victims of medical malpractice
STEPHEN G. SCHWARZ
GUEST ESSAYIST
Kevin D. Hart's excellent Speaking Out essay (Feb. 4)
on the latest crisis in medical malpractice premiums supports what judges
and trial lawyers have known for years: These periodic spikes in the rates
doctors pay for their insurance have virtually nothing to do with the legal
system.
Historically, however, politicians seek to diminish the
rights of malpractice victims whenever one of these "crises" hit, and President
Bush has now advanced a plan to follow that dubious precedent.
As a Wall Street Journal article of June 24, 2002, clearly
documented, this latest "crisis" is again of the insurance industry's own
making. In the boom years of the '90s, the industry took in billions of
dollars in premiums, invested them in the stock market and produced billions
more in profits. Many companies cut prices, insured questionable risks
(i.e. repeat malpractice offenders)