2005 Citations to the Institute of Medicine Report       that  44,000 to 98,000 People Die Annually Due to Hospital Errors     These are "leads" only - Contact publishers for full text.

http://md-jd.info/errors.ht      Medical Malpractice

Preventing Errors in Hospitals
The Times-Mail, (Bedford, IN) Monday, December 26, 2005
     A new state law will require Indiana hospitals to report medical errors in more than two dozen
categories. Purdue University health-care expert Joseph Pekny believes the practice will help
patients.
    Indiana, joining only Minnesota as states with an error reporting system, can actually take pride
in taking on the commitment to be accountable to patients.

New State Law Will Require Error Reports from Hospitals
- Indiana Is Second in Nation to Set up System on Mistakes
  The Indianapolis Star      December 19, 2005
   When Lynda Phebus learned that doctors at Home Hospital in Lafayette had found a suspicious mass in her husband Robert's abdomen, she couldn't help but think it was a tumor.But her husband was later transferred to St. Elizabeth Hospital, another facility in Lafayette.
 There, doctors found something different: a surgical towel that had been left in his abdomen during an operation on his back at Home Hospital three years earlier,    
    according to a lawsuit filed by his wife.
Four days later, the 57-year-old Lafayette man was dead.

National Use of Technology Would Cut Medical Errors
     The Mercury News (San Jose CA) Wednesday,  Nov 30, 2005     By Dr. Robert Pearl
    My father died two years in Florida from a medical error. He died in spite of having excellent doctors and dedicated nurses. He died because medical care has become incredibly complex and because as a nation we have not devoted enough attention to implementing electronic medical record systems and other methods to ensure patient safety.
   His doctors in Florida and New York, where he spent half the year respectively, all assumed he had received a necessary vaccine, one that all of them knew he needed, but ultimately one that he simply was never given.

Medical Reformer Has Huge Impact
  - Former VA Hospitals Chief Has Pioneered Life-Saving Methods
     The Mercury News (San Jose CA) Sunday, Nov 27, 2005
    Kenneth Kizer, former VA Hospitals Chief, recently created and led a Washington group of more than 300 physician, hospital, insurer and consumer representatives whose purpose is to agree on specific standards to measure medical-care quality.Some standards are as simple as whether a hospitalized heart-attack victim gets a beta-blocker drug to ward off the harmful effects of stress hormones on the heart. Heart patients who don't get beta-blockers after heart attacks are 40 percent likelier to be dead a year later.
    In the long run, well-applied quality measures, by driving out bad care, will help deliver more good care at lower cost, reformers such as Kizer and Berwick believe. Ultimately, the U.S. health care system would pay doctors to keep patients healthy -- a system called pay for performance -- rather than to treat their illnesses.
   Kizer announced earlier this month that he will be leaving the National Quality Forum in December to take over Medsphere Systems, a small health information-technology company in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, with the goal of cutting the price of electronic patient record-keeping by using the free, publicly available open-source system that the VA devised.

Hospitals blamed in more deaths
Mercury News (San Jose, CA) November 10, 2005
    Kaiser Permanente officials have confirmed the deaths of two more patients caused by staff errors at its South Bay hospitals. The deaths bring to at least four the number of fatal incidents at Kaiser facilities during the past 13 months.
    A Mercury News search of state Department of Health Services files found that:
• A 77-year-old man was admitted to Kaiser-Santa Clara on Oct. 28, 2004, having difficulty breathing. On Nov. 1, according to the state report, his physician wrote an order to give the patient nothing by mouth because he was having difficulty eating.
• Last Christmas Eve, a 64-year-old San Jose man was admitted to Kaiser-Santa Clara complaining of ``vision changes'' and having trouble speaking. He was diagnosed as having suffered a stroke and put on a drug called a tissue plasminogen activator, or TPA. The total dosage ordered for the man was 67 milligrams, and his nurse set the IV to shut off at that point. But according to state records, another nurse, finding that there was still medication in the 100-milligram container, administered that, too.

Moving toward safe health care
Naples Sun Times (Florida)  11/09/2005
It is true that we all make mistakes. But errors that compromise human lives always seem unacceptable.
In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report entitled To Err is Human that generated a national campaign to improve patient safety. According to IOM, medical errors cause between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per year in the United States, with a national cost 17 to 29 billion dollars.
Notwithstanding the national efforts to improve patient safety, the goal to cut medical errors by half in five years has not been achieved, revealed a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in May of this year. More people die from medical errors than from breast cancer, highway accidents or AIDS.

Kaiser Hospitals Implement Safeguards New Procedures at 2 Sites Where Fatal Mistakes Occurred
          San Francisco Chronicle  November 5, 2005
    Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Santa Clara and San Jose have instituted safeguards approved by the California Department of Health Services to prevent future deaths from the kind of mistakes that recently claimed the lives of a 12-year-old girl with pneumonia and a 21-year-old man with lymphoma.
   The hospital, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, now requires that two registered nurses write their initials on medication bags before administering epinephrine and other "high-risk" drugs, and that all such drugs be labeled with brightly colored stickers, according to Scott Vivona, branch chief of Bay Area field operations for the state Department of Health Services.
    Officials from the state said the hospital, Kaiser Permanente Santa Teresa Medical Center, has retrained its staff on the importance of adhering to the "Five Rights of Medication Administration" -- right dose, right medication, right time, right patient, right administration (oral, intravenous, injection).
    "In really safe systems, 'dikes' have been created around the normal human frailties," he said, citing aircraft carriers and nuclear power plants as examples. "We haven't done that in heath care."

Another death in '05 attributed to hospital error
Mercury News (San Jose, CA)
November 4, 2005
Christopher Wibeto wasn't the only South Bay Kaiser patient to die this year after receiving the wrong medication.
  In July, a 12-year-old girl hospitalized at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center-Santa Clara was mistakenly given a double dose of epinephrine, which speeds up the heart rate, state records show.
 Josephine Frances Hart, a San Jose resident who loved to play with marbles, died July 26, the same day of the error. Her official cause of death is still being investigated by the county coroner's office, but state health investigators determined that a nurse failed to check the medication label.

Medical mistake may have killed man  
Mercury News (San Jose, CA)
November 2, 2005
    State officials have determined that  Christopher Robin Wibeto, age 21, was wrongly given another patient's medication, a cancer-fighting drug called vincristine.
Vincristine is usually fatal when injected into the spine -- in fact, a hospital safety organization issued a nationwide warning to hospitals about this danger in July -- the month before Wibeto's Aug. 29 death.
``Despite repeated warnings over the years and extensive labeling requirements and standards, tragic errors related to the inadvertent administration of vincristine'' into the spine ``continue to occur,'' the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations cautioned. ``And, while such events occur infrequently, such `wrong route' errors are very preventable.''

Speakers cite medical quality, costs at 75th anniversary event
Oct 28, 2005
 Durham Herald Sun - Durham, NC
Doctors are losing the trust of patients. Health care costs -- the highest in the world -- threaten to bankrupt the United States, where 45 million people are uninsured and where medical errors rank among the top 10 causes of death.
The keynote speaker at Duke University's Medical Alumni Association observation of the 75th anniversary of the School of Medicine was Henry Fineberg, the Harvard-trained  physician-researcher who serves as president of the Institute of Medicine.
That's the National Academies' arm that produced the alarming study in 1999, "To Err is Human," informing the world that medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 Americans a year -- more than highway accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
How can Duke and other medical institutions best gather data to use in generating evidence-based medicine?

Hospitals team to reduce deaths from error
The Columbus Dispatch   
Friday, October 21, 2005
Midway through the controlled chaos that erupts after a "Code Blue" call in a hospital, as doctors and nurses struggled to save the patient, another doctor walked in the room and made an announcement.  This patient was a "No Code." A DNR. Do not resuscitate. The team stopped, frustrated by the mistake.
  Only later did a nurse realize that the doctor had pulled the wrong chart and gave an order that belonged to another patient.

Deadly mistakes
Ohio Dispatch - Friday, October 21, 2005
A landmark 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine drew attention to the enormous scope of medical errors in the nation, and hospitals and regulators have been grappling with the issue since. Yesterday, Ohio-Health and Mount Carmel held a seminar on the issue. Some facts:

• 44,000 to 98,000 people die in hospitals each year because of medical mistakes.

Philadelphia Inquirer
October 18, 2004 
Hospital infections targeted
-  A council of 68 Southeastern Pennsylvania hospitals begins today to try to improve safety and care starting with four treatment areas.

  A new patient-safety initiative being launched today by Philadelphia-area hospitals aims to bring the industrial emphasis on minimizing mistakes and improving quality from the factory floor into the surgical suite.
    The effort by the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council, which represents 68 hospitals in Southeastern Pennsylvania, seeks to improve safety and patient care in specific treatment areas. The effort will initially focus on reducing hospital-acquired infections in four of the highest-risk areas: urinary catheters, ventilators, surgical-wound sites, and central lines. Central lines are catheters inserted into major veins that lead to the heart to deliver intravenous drugs.
    While the initial focus of the program is to reduce hospital-acquired infections - a national problem that hurts thousands of patients and adds billions of dollars to the cost of health care each year - the objective is to address other problems in hospital care and ultimately arm all the institutions with the skills to analyze and improve any error-prone treatment process.  
    The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council found that 1,793 patients who contracted infections while hospitalized died - 1,510 more than expected. In 2004, 11,688 patients contracted infections during treatment, leading to 205,000 extra days in the state's hospitals.

The Kansas City Star
September 27, 2005, Tuesday
Medical records get wired
Last November, a group of leading health-care experts said America had fallen far short of its goal to cut in half an epidemic of deadly medical errors.
The experts, meeting at a Washington conference sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, were following up on an Institute of Medicine report that said 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die every year from preventable medical errors.
"Patients are safer than they were five years ago, but it's not a whole lot better," Lucian Leape, a surgeon and adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, said at the time.
Patient safety experts said a key step toward improvement would be computerized information systems, which can root out many of the errors that result from paper charts that are easily misread or mislaid. Only about 20 percent to 25 percent of hospitals and 15 percent to 20 percent of physician offices have adopted such systems.

Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Washington)
September 18, 2005, Sunday
Company charts prison medical records
If keeping track of patients' medical records is tough for family doctors, just imagine how hard it is for Capt. Kimberly Kennedy.
Kennedy, nursing director at the Benton County jail, estimates that 70 percent of her staff's time is taken up not in treating inmates' medical problems, but in paperwork.
"It's almost crazy how much time we spend tracking stuff down," she said.
The jail holds up to 700 inmates at any given time, and sometimes getting medical records from their doctors or the Washington state Department of Corrections can take up to a week, "because it's all on paper."

The Indianapolis Star (Indiana)
September 14, 2005, Wednesday
Indiana medical agency unveils plan to improve patient safety
In hospitals, simple oversights can be fatal.
A heart attack victim might not get an aspirin early enough. Or a doctor might prescribe a medication that could have a dangerous reaction with another drug the patient is taking.
The Indiana Hospital & Health Association on Tuesday detailed its plan to avoid such errors and improve patient safety at hospitals across the state. The group also said it intends to lead the development of a mandatory system for hospitals to report medical errors to the Indiana State Department of Health.

The Indianapolis Star (Indiana)
September 14, 2005 Wednesday Final Edition
Health group's triage: safety first;
Association outlines plan to save lives by cutting medical errors in Indiana's hospitals.
In hospitals, simple oversights can be fatal.
A heart attack victim might not get an aspirin early enough. Or a doctor might prescribe a medication that could have a dangerous reaction with another drug the patient is taking.
The Indiana Hospital & Health Association on Tuesday detailed its plan to avoid such errors and improve patient safety at hospitals across the state. The group also said it intends to lead the development of a mandatory system for hospitals to report medical errors to the Indiana State Department of Health.

American Health Line
August 24, 2005 Wednesday
MEDICAL ERRORS: JCAHO TO LEAD INTERNATIONAL EFFORT
World Health Organization officials on Tuesday announced
that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare
Organizations, which inspects the safety of hospitals, and its
affiliate, the Joint Commission International, will head an
international effort to reduce medical errors, USA Today
reports.  According to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report,
44,000 to 98,000 U.S. residents die annually from medical
errors, outpacing deaths related to highway accidents or breast
cancer.

USA TODAY
August 24, 2005, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION
Global goal: Reduce medical errors
The World Health Organization announced Tuesday that an American group will coordinate an international effort to combat medical errors, which seriously harm 1 in 10 hospitalized patients.
The initiative will be led by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, which inspects hospitals to ensure they meet safety standards, as well as its affiliate, the Joint Commission International, officials announced at a conference in Washington, D.C.
In a 1999 report, the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die in hospitals every year because of medical errors -- more than breast cancer or highway accidents. Since the release of that report, people have begun to see patient safety as a basic measure of health care quality, says Mirta Roses Periago, director of the Pan American Health Organization.
"Human error is inevitable. We can never eliminate it," says Liam Donaldson, chairman of WHO's World Health Alliance for Patient Safety. "We can eliminate problems in the system that make it more likely to happen."

Pensacola News Journal (Florida)
August 18, 2005 Thursday
Better medical error reporting will benefit all concerned
A congressional bill passed July 27 and signed by President Bush may not have popped up on the radar screen of most consumers, but nevertheless could be critically important, especially long-term.
The bill, the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005, encourages voluntary disclosure by hospitals and physicians of medical errors, with the aim of diagnosing the causes and preventing similar mistakes in future.
Both the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association supported the bill, along with other groups, including consumer-focused AARP.

The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
August 14, 2005 Sunday Final chaser Edition
ELECTRONIC FILES MAJOR CHANGE FOR HEALTH CARE;
BUT MOST DOCTORS STILL USE PEN, PAPER
You can print a boarding pass from your computer and get on an airplane. But when you go to a doctor's office, they give you a clipboard, pen and paper forms.
You can get your credit report online but not a health report.
Technology has swept through airlines, financial services and other industries, but health care is stuck in the manila-folder era.
Fewer than one in five doctors' offices nationally has computerized patients' medical records, and the numbers may be worse in Arizona, where doctors' practices often are small. Fewer than one-third of hospital emergency departments create computer records.

National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Talk of the Nation 2:00 AM EST NPR
August 8, 2005 Monday
Newt Gingrich discusses his suggestions for health-care reform and other issues
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
In 1994, Newt Gingrich led a Republican revolution in Congress that toppled a power structure that dated back to the New Deal. He offered a flood of reforms and new ideas epitomized by the Contract with America. Today, long after his departure as speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich continues to promote change in speeches, Op-Ed articles, on Fox TV, in his books on politics and policy. He joins us today to talk about proposals to repair a health-care system he believes is badly broken. He's gone so far as to join forces with a former foe, Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, on one aspect of health-care restructuring.

AScribe Newswire
August 5, 2005 Friday
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Innovation
in Patient Safety Training to Improve Surgical Outcomes
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 5 [AScribe Newswire] -- On Wednesday, August 17, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. in the Isidore Cohn Learning Center on the campus of Louisiana State University [LSU] Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, a surgical team comprising surgery residents, anesthesiologists, circulating nurses, nurse anesthesia students, and medical students, will be thrown into a scenario where their patient develops a potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia during a gallbladder operation. Other crises may occur as well, depending upon how the surgical team performs. Through a peerless combination and adaptation of the most sophisticated medical simulation and virtual technology developed to date, faculty at LSU Health Sciences Center [LSUHSC] in New Orleans are now training future generations of medical professionals to anticipate and avoid medical errors. To our knowledge, there is not another set-up like it anywhere in the United States. While other universities are using simulators and still others are doing mock training exercises, there is not another program that has connected independent technologies to relate laparoscopic surgery to a "live patient" in an environment with the look, feel, and function of a real minimally invasive operating theater.

The Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
August 1, 2005 Monday Final chaser Edition
Correction Appended
LAB A VIRTUAL REVOLUTION;
UA'S NEW HIGH-TECH CENTER ALLOWS STUDENTS TO PRACTICE SAFELY
One of the country's first virtual operating rooms has opened at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, testing new technologies that will allow future doctors to train without putting patients in danger.
Ten days ago, the first medical students began practicing procedures on a lifelike dummy and trying their hand at virtual laparoscopic surgery. Fewer than 20 hospitals in the United States have this type of high-tech simulation center, but dozens more are in the works. This is Arizona's first.
Experts say such centers are changing the face of medical training, boosting student confidence and allowing teaching across geographic barriers. They predict that in five years or more, surgeons, much like pilots, could be required to pass a simulated test before practicing medicine.

Dermatology Nursing
August 1, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 135578778
Evaluating the performance of health care employees; Management Forum
Leaders within the health care industry should develop skills to determine the level of performance of their employees. At our health care institution, University of Missouri (MU) Healthcare, we, too, are realizing the need to develop these leadership skills. MU Healthcare is not alone in its quest to develop the quality of its employees. All across the nation the health care industry is struggling to keep its excellent employees (the high performers); further develop its good, solid employees (the middle performers); and force the low performers in the organization to either become middle performers, or exit the workplace. Why the emphasis on HML (high, middle, low) and the performance of employees?

Health Management Technology
August, 2005
The Enterprise Take on Patient Safety
Despite Herculean efforts on the part of clinical staffs, medical errors still plague most hospitals.  Mismatched blood types, surgical removal of healthy limbs and adverse drug reactions grab the headlines and perpetuate providers' fears of multimillion dollar malpractice suits and consumers' fears of permanent damage.
The gravity of this problem first came to national attention in 1999 when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a study indicating that between 44,000 and 98,000 U.S. deaths per year were caused by medical errors.  The price tag for these errors was estimated at $ 17 billion and $ 29 billion.
A more recent study released by The Commonwealth Fund in 2002 found that an estimated 22.8 million people have experienced some kind of medical error, either personally or in their families.

MedSurg Nursing
August 1, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 135215017
Working hours, fatigue, and medical malpractice; MEDSURG MiNUTE
Many hospitals are critically dependent on extended working hours, with 24+ hour physician duty periods, and back-to-back work shifts for nursing staff, driven in part by a national shortage of registered nurses and skilled medical technologists. In this context, according to Circadian, an international research and consulting firm, three types of lawsuits and appeals are increasingly being filed:
* Medical malpractice claims that a medical "error" was precipitated by physician or nurse fatigue due to extended working hours.

National Journal's CongressDaily
July 28, 2005 Thursday 10:30 am Eastern Time
am
SECTION: HEALTH MATTERS
Getting Along, For Now
Even as a largely partisan Medicare prescription drug benefit is implemented, and with Congress facing a partisan fight this fall over $10 billion in cuts to Medicaid, bipartisanship is suddenly in vogue for health issues in and around the Capitol.
The first indication came last week, when an all-night negotiation produced a compromise on a bill aimed at decreasing the incidence of medical mistakes. The bill, approved by the Senate last week and the House Wednesday, is less significant for what it does -- creates a voluntary reporting system for errors and "near misses" to allow experts to analyze problems and recommend solutions -- than for what it represents. That would be agreement on a strategy to fight medical errors that dates to late 1999, when the Institute of Medicine first reported that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans were dying every year not from their ailments, but at the hands of the healthcare system itself.

National Journal's CongressDaily
July 28, 2005 Thursday 10:30 am Eastern Time
SECTION: HEALTH
House Approves Medical Errors Bill
The House passed legislation Wednesday aimed at reducing medical errors. The action will send the bill to the president's desk following years of debate in both chambers.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
July 27, 2005 Wednesday
COMMITTEE: HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Statement of David J. Brailer National Coordinator, Health Information Technology U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Committee on House Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization
July 27, 2005
Chairman Porter and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Dr. David Brailer, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Thank you for inviting me to testify today on health information technology activities underway in the Department. Setting the Context On April 27, 2004, the President signed Executive Order 13335 (EO) announcing his commitment to the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology infrastructure to improve efficiency, reduce medical errors, raise the quality of care, and provide better information for patients, physicians, and other health care providers. In particular, the President called for widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) within 10 years so that health information will follow patients throughout their care in a seamless and secure manner. Toward that vision, the EO directed the Secretary of the Department Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish within the Office of the Secretary the position of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (National Coordinator), with responsibilities for coordinating Federal health information technology (health IT) programs with those of relevant executive branch agencies, as well as coordinating with the private sector on their health IT efforts.

The New York Times
July 26, 2005 Tuesday 
Late Edition - Final
Learning Words They Rarely Teach in Medical School: 'I'm Sorry'
There is nothing in the Hippocratic Oath that tells doctors what to do when they make a mistake with a patient. Nor is there much on this subject in medical school curriculums or in residency training programs.
But there should be.
Much was made of the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report that 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year in hospitals from preventable medical errors, many of them presumably made by doctors.

July 25, 2005
Drugmakers Need to Be More Involved in Health IT, Experts Say
Drugmakers need to take a more active role in developing and promoting federal healthcare IT projects -- specifically those related to electronic prescribing systems ("eprescribing"), according to members of a PhRMA committee.
Drugmakers typically are focused on their own regulatory compliance issues rather than on the broader healthcare regulatory picture, affirmed Diana McKenzie, senior director of development information systems at Amgen, a biotechnology company based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The industry should ensure that its input is included in federal healthcare IT scenario planning, which the Bush administration has directed the HHS to lead.

National Journal's CongressDaily
July 22, 2005 Friday 19:00 pm Eastern Time
pm
SECTION: HEALTH
Senate Passses Medical Errors Reporting Legislation
Legislation aimed at reducing medical errors cleared the Senate last night in a unanimous vote, and will go before the House next week. The bill, which would create a new voluntary reporting system for errors and "near misses" so researchers will be able to analyze the data and recommend policy changes, was the product of intense negotiations between the House and Senate, which passed slightly different versions of the bill last session.

National Journal's CongressDaily
July 21, 2005 Thursday 10:30 am Eastern Time
am
SECTION: HEALTH
HEADLINE: Senate, House Panels Agree On Medical Errors Legislation
More than five years after the Institute of Medicine brought the issue of medical errors to the national agenda, House and Senate negotiators have agreed on legislation to create new voluntary reporting systems for errors and "near misses" so that researchers will be able to analyze the data and recommend policy fixes.
The deal -- struck before dawn Tuesday following an all-night session between aides for Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Enzi and ranking member Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Barton and ranking member John Dingell, D-Mich. -- resolves more than two years of on-again, off-again negotiations over relatively minor differences between measures passed by the chambers in the 108th Congress.

US Fed News
July 21, 2005 Thursday  4:54 AM  EST
COMMITTEE APPROVES BILLS TO IMPROVE PUBLIC HEALTH, HELP UNINSURED
Rep. Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, issued the following press release:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved six bills on Wednesday to reduce medical errors, help the uninsured obtain health coverage, and combat the rising abuse of prescription drug medication.
"These important proposals will improve the quality of and access to medical care in America today," said committee Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas. "Two bills authored by Congressman Shadegg will help more people get health insurance. In particular, the Health Care Choice Act will address the rising costs of insurance, which has priced millions right out of the market. Allowing people to purchase a health insurance policy they can afford could go a long way toward reducing the number of uninsured.

July 20, 2005
Manufacturers Should Play Active Role in Health IT Initiatives, Experts Say
Drugmakers need to take a more active role in developing and promoting federal healthcare IT projects -- specifically those related to electronic prescribing systems ("eprescribing"), according to members of a PhRMA committee.
Drugmakers typically are focused on their own regulatory compliance issues rather than on the broader healthcare regulatory picture, affirmed Diana McKenzie, senior director of development information systems at Amgen, a biotechnology company based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The industry should ensure that its input is included in federal healthcare IT scenario planning, which the Bush administration has directed the HHS to lead.
McKenzie and other members of PhRMA's Information Management Policy and Affairs Coordinating Committee (IMPACC) made these comments at an interactive panel discussion titled, "PhRMA IMPACC's Strategic View of the Future of Healthcare IT and Associated Implications for the Biopharmaceutical Industry" at the Drug Information Association annual conference recently held in Washington, D.C.
IMPACC members have been researching the healthcare industry's IT-related initiatives, such as the push toward eprescribing and other technology projects at the National Cancer Institute, McKenzie said.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
July 20, 2005 Wednesday
COMMITTEE: SENATE BUDGET
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Statement of Mike Leavitt Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services
Committee on Senate Budget
July 20, 2005
Introduction
Chairman Gregg and members of Committee, I am honored to be with you today to discuss a key element of the President's health care agenda-- health information technology (IT). The President and I are committed to promote health information technology and we believe that it will yield lower health care costs, reduction in medical errors, and enhanced quality of care. Today, I will provide a brief overview of our Department's health information strategy and the activities underway at this time.
Setting the Context
When President Bush asked me to become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he charged me with helping Americans live longer, healthier lives and with doing so in a way that will maintain our economic health as a nation. While the U.S. offers world-class health care, it also spends nearly 16% of its GDP on health care or $1.8 trillion. In 1960, 5.1% of our GDP was spent on health care. Estimates are that it could be close to 19% of GDP by 2014. This is almost twice the average among European Union countries, with a growing portion attributable to Medicare spending.

States News Service
July 20, 2005 Wednesday
STATEMENT BY MICHAEL O. LEAVITT, SECRETARY OF DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ON HEALTH IT
The following information was released by the Department of Health & Human Services:
Introduction
Chairman Gregg and members of Committee, I am honored to be with you today to discuss a key element of the President's health care agenda-- health information technology (IT). The President and I are committed to promote health information technology and we believe that it will yield lower health care costs, reduction in medical errors, and enhanced quality of care. Today, I will provide a brief overview of our Department's health information strategy and the activities underway at this time.
Setting the Context
When President Bush asked me to become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he charged me with helping Americans live longer, healthier lives and with doing so in a way that will maintain our economic health as a nation. While the U.S. offers world-class health care, it also spends nearly 16% of its GDP on health care or $1.8 trillion. In 1960, 5.1% of our GDP was spent on health care. Estimates are that it could be close to 19% of GDP by 2014. This is almost twice the average among European Union countries, with a growing portion attributable to Medicare spending.

 
US Fed News
July 20, 2005 Wednesday  5:02 AM  EST
BI-PARTISAN HEALTH IT BILL PUTS PATIENTS FIRST
The office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., issued the following press release:
Today, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and his colleagues, Sens. Mike Enzi, Bill Frist and Hillary Clinton have introduced legislation to modernize health care for the 21st Century. Patient care declines in quality when physicians do not have access to timely information about the patients they serve and health care costs skyrocket when tests or procedures are duplicated because critical records are missing or inaccessible. Wasting scarce health care dollars on needless administrative costs drives up insurance premiums, and means that care is less affordable and less available. The Wired for Health Care Quality Act of 2005 sets forth the goal posts for improving health care through technology, reducing administrative costs and diminishing fatal errors caused by lack of information.
Senator Kennedy said, "We have a responsibility to make the miracles of modern medicine available to every American. However, in our health care system, medical errors are all too common and coordination of care is often poor. Rising costs are crushing our health care system."

U.S. News & World Report
July 18, 2005
Saving Lives
Before 1999, dying in a hospital because of shoddy care was a real enough possibility, but only the paranoid or pessimistic gave it much thought. Then came To Err Is Human, a j'accuse-style thunderbolt from the prestigious Institute of Medicine. Medical errors in hospitals, charged the institute's report, kill at least 44,000 and perhaps as many as 98,000 patients a year. On its heels, other studies found widespread failure to heed well-known "best practices" that could save lives. Horrific tales of individuals betrayed by mistakes and inattention popped up in the news like poisonous mushrooms. Medical centers suddenly were seen as death traps.
In truth, no one knows now, or knew with any precision in 1999, how many hospital patients die from errors and inadequate care. Even agreement on the meaning of "error" is elusive--should deaths caused by substandard care be counted along with deaths caused by mistakes?

The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington)
July 7, 2005 Thursday
Cantwell monitors medical technology;
Senator says better information systems could save lives, money
A scalpel doesn't come with a "delete" key, so U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell is seeking another high-tech way to blunt the rate of medical errors, as well as the rising cost of health care.
During her visit Wednesday, staff members at Southwest Washington Medical Center showed some of the resources now available, then explained how information technology could make the system even more efficient.

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
July 7, 2005 Thursday 
SUNRISE EDITION
CANTWELL TOUTS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTH CARE
Summary: Visiting Southwest Washington Medical Center, the senator says a bill would save lives, money
Computer systems that can talk to each other from hospital to hospital and anywhere in between would improve patient health care, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Wednesday.
Cantwell stressed the importance of communication during a visit to Southwest Washington Medical Center. She used the visit to promote a bill she is co-sponsoring, the Health Information Technology Quality and Improvement Act of 2005.

Battle Creek Enquirer (Michigan)
July 6, 2005 Wednesday
OUR OPINIONS
Curbing infections
Hospitals find success in reducing mistakes
Most intensive care nurses will tell you that patients on ventilators often face the risk of developing pneumonia. Yet over the past year, such cases of pneumonia have dropped dramatically in hospitals taking part in the "100,000 Lives Campaign" sponsored by the Institute for Health Care Improvement.
Battle Creek Health System is among hundreds of hospitals participating in the campaign, which focuses on six problem areas, such as reducing medication errors and preventing pneumonia and blood infections in intensive care patients.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
June 30, 2005 Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Statement of Dr. Hratch G. Semerjian Acting Director, National Institute of Standards and Technology Technology Administration U.S. Department of Commerce
Committee on Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness
June 30, 2005
Chairman Ensign and Members of the Committee, I am Hratch Semerjian, acting Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the Technology Administration of the Department of Commerce. I am pleased to be offered the opportunity to add to this discussion regarding health information technology.
I will focus my testimony on the role that timely and reliable measurement and consensus based standards can play in increasing the accuracy, privacy, security, and reliability of health information to meet the President's mandate to make our country's premier healthcare system safer, more affordable, and more accessible through the utilization of information technology (IT). A cultural transformation of our nation's $1.9 trillion national healthcare system can reverse troubling statistics such as 44,000-98,000 Americans dying each year from inpatient medical errors ; Americans are being injured or are dying each year from adverse drug events ; and a significant annual expenditure on treatments that may not improve health, may be redundant, or may be inappropriate. As a result of the President's initiative, the nation will have a healthcare revolution that will connect IT systems for payment, prescriptions, and patient care. In order for this model to succeed, it will require interoperable IT standards and clinical diagnostic tools that are technically sound, robustly specified, and traceable to national standards and reference materials.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
June 30, 2005 Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Statement of Robert M. Kolodner, MD Acting Veterans Health Administration Chief Health and Informatics Officer Department of Veterans Affairs
Committee on Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness
June 30, 2005
Good Morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee.
Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss our work in the field of health information technology.
One year ago, Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, MSHA, FACP, Under Secretary for Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, appeared before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to discuss the importance of electronic health records and the role of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the development, use, and sharing of this valuable technology. President Bush had just outlined an ambitious plan to ensure that most Americans have electronic health records within 10 years. The President noted a range of benefits possible with the expanded use of information technology, including reduced costs; improved health care quality; reduced frequency of medical errors; advancements in the delivery of appropriate, evidence-based medical care; greater coordination of care among different providers; and increased privacy and security protections for personal health information.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
June 30, 2005 Thursday
COMMITTEE: SENATE COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Statement of David J. Brailer, M.D., Ph.D. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Committee on Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness
June 30, 2005
Chairman Ensign and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Dr. David Brailer, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I, along with my colleague Dr. Carolyn Clancy, will provide a brief overview of some of the Department's health information activities underway.

Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing
June 28, 2005
Safety, Security Flatline With Patients
Medical error initiatives fail to make patients feel safer
There's an old joke that if you stay in a hospital long enough, you'll get sick. But that joke became no laughing matter in November 1999, when an Institute of Medicine study revealed that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die every year because of medical errors. Since the report's release, hospitals have spent countless dollars and hours on creating new clinical information systems and uniform electronic medical records, updating protocols, policies and procedures, and training staff. The government has launched major initiatives. Reporting requirements for adverse incidents have tightened.

The Times Union (Albany, New York)
June 26, 2005 Sunday 
3 EDITION
Pushing paper aside
COLONIE -- The deadline for the end of the second quarter was approaching, and accountant Jim Cole was drowning in paperwork.
His desk was covered with piles of documents bound in brown folders. The floor was similarly covered, with some piles stacked high enough to block a Hobbit. A bookshelf also was packed.

The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
June 24, 2005 Friday
Doctor disciplined for errors that led to surgical mixup;
State disciplines others in health field
State regulators have reprimanded a former Springfield doctor for his role in mistakes that led to the wrong patient having his prostate gland removed.
Dr. Brian W. Webb, a pathologist who previously worked at Memorial Medical Center, was the focus of the disciplinary action. A reprimand is the least severe form of discipline imposed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. The reprimand is listed on a doctor's record, but unlike a license revocation or suspension, a reprimand doesn't take away the doctor's license to practice medicine.

Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA)
June 22, 2005 Wednesday 
Metro Edition
HOSPITALS JOIN LIFE-SAVING CAMPAIGN;
National effort aims to reduce errors, infections and other problems;
In 2001, a Spokane doctor fused bones in Steve Rudd's left foot. But it was his right foot that needed the operation.
In 2004, a woman died after she was injected with a toxic antiseptic solution rather than a dye during an aneurism procedure in Seattle.
And last summer, Spokane resident Jeffrey Girtz died a year after a doctor removed the wrong adrenal gland.

Spokesman Review (Spokane, WA)
June 22, 2005 Wednesday 
Valley Edition
HOSPITALS JOIN LIFE-SAVING CAMPAIGN;
National effort aims to reduce errors, infections and other problems;
In 2001, a Spokane doctor fused bones in Steve Rudd's left foot. But it was his right foot that needed the operation.
In 2004, a woman died after she was injected with a toxic antiseptic solution rather than a dye during an aneurism procedure in Seattle.
And last summer, Spokane resident Jeffrey Girtz died a year after a doctor removed the wrong adrenal gland.

Spokesman-Review
June 22, 2005, Wednesday
Hospitals join life-saving campaign
In 2001, a Spokane doctor fused bones in Steve Rudd's left foot. But it was his right foot that needed the operation.
In 2004, a woman died after she was injected with a toxic antiseptic solution rather than a dye during an aneurism procedure in Seattle.
And last summer, Spokane resident Jeffrey Girtz died a year after a doctor removed the wrong adrenal gland.

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CNN
SHOW: CNN SUNDAY MORNING 7:00 AM EST
June 19, 2005 Sunday
U.S., Iraqi Troops Target Insurgents Along Syrian Border
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Peace in the Middle East was at the top of the agenda for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's meetings in Israel this morning. Rice discussed the time table for the Gaza withdrawal with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. She called Gaza crucial to the success of the so-called road map for peace. We have a live report from CNN's Guy Raz in about two minutes.
In the meantime, police in Aruba questioned a judge as a witness in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. The judge is the father of one of the suspects already in custody. Holloway has been missing for three weeks now.
Another earthquake as shaken Californians this morning. This one, just about an hour ago off the northern California coast. This moderate 5.0 quake is the fifth to rumble along the West Coast in the past week.

CNN
SHOW: PAULA ZAHN NOW 8:00 PM EST
June 17, 2005 Friday
Hospital Horrors; In Legal Limbo
PAUL ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Thanks so much for being with us tonight.
We begin with a matter of life and death that affects millions of us and our loved ones every year. Most of us who check into the hospital get the help we need, but too many don't. And by one estimate, hospital mistakes kill close to 100,000 patients a year.
For example, you don't have to be a doctor to know that hydraulic fluid should not be used to clean surgical instruments. But for two months last year, two North Carolina hospitals mistakenly did just that. And those instruments were used on 3,800 patients.

US Fed News
June 13, 2005 Monday  2:27 AM  EST
BRINGING HEALTHCARE INTO THE INFORMATION AGE
Rep. Joseph R. Pitts, R-Pa. (16th CD), issued the following column:
Healthcare and railroad tracks. These were the topics of remarks delivered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt during a meeting recently.
He said that the challenges facing our health care system were much like those once facing America 's railroads. In the 19th Century locomotive operators and designers found that the gauge of railroad tracks - the distance between the rails - varied as much as foot in some places because of various standards employed by private companies. Use of railroads during the Civil War, however, demonstrated the need to adopt a uniform standard, which the Lincoln Administration implemented, in order to facilitate faster troop movement and increase commerce along railroad routes.

Capitol Hill Press Releases
June 10, 2005
FT-ACC-NO: A20050614173-BB76-GNW
PANEL RENEWS PUSH FOR PATIENT SAFETY, FINDS FEAR OF
For Immediate Release
Panel Renews Push For Patient Safety, Finds Fear of Litigation Slows Change
Contact: Press Office 202-225-5735
June 10, 2005
WASHINGTON - Patients are safer than they were six years ago, when a landmark federal report identified medical mistakes as killers, but the House Health Subcommittee heard Thursday that fear of lawsuits makes life-saving reform difficult.
"Several elements are fundamental to any disclosure effort when an adverse event occurs," said Dr. Dennis O'Leary, president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. "These include a prompt explanation of what is understood about what happened and its probable effects; assurance that an analysis will take place to understand what went wrong; follow-up based on the analysis to make it unlikely that such an event will happen again; and an apology.

Congressional Press Releases
June 10, 2005 Friday
PANEL RENEWS PUSH FOR PATIENT SAFETY, FINDS FEAR OF LITIGATION SLOWS CHANGE
For Immediate Release
Panel Renews Push For Patient Safety, Finds Fear of Litigation Slows Change
Contact: Press Office 202-225-5735
June 10, 2005
WASHINGTON - Patients are safer than they were six years ago, when a landmark federal report identified medical mistakes as killers, but the House Health Subcommittee heard Thursday that fear of lawsuits makes life-saving reform difficult.

 
US Fed News
June 10, 2005 Friday  5:24 AM  EST
PANEL RENEWS PUSH FOR PATIENT SAFETY, FINDS FEAR OF LITIGATION SLOWS CHANGE
Rep. Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, issued the following press release:
Patients are safer than they were six years ago, when a landmark federal report identified medical mistakes as killers, but the House Health Subcommittee heard Thursday that fear of lawsuits makes life-saving reform difficult.

Daily Press - Newport
June 9, 2005, Thursday
Some 48 Virginia hospitals will try to trim avoidable deaths
Forty-eight hospitals in Virginia have joined a national effort to save the lives of 100,000 patients by the middle of next year.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, Mass. It created the campaign, "100,000 Lives," in December to improve patient outcomes by reducing the number of hospital-related infections and preventing dangerous reactions to medicine.
Competing with hospitals all over the country provides an incentive to participate in the national voluntary project. Racing to make improvements compared with national benchmarks could also have a financial benefit for hospitals

CIO Magazine
June 1, 2005
Medication Systems Need Treatment
New technology has long been a hard sell for health-care CIOs working to convince doctors to give up their prescription pads. Now, they are facing an added challenge after a recent study found computers can increase the risk of dangerous medication errors.
Only about 10 percent of U.S. hospitals have installed systems to automate drug ordering. But more are considering the investment because, up until now, studies have shown that computerized physician order entry (CPOE) can dramatically reduce the frequency of medication errors. In a recent study, however, researchers at the University  of Pennsylvania medical school found-after observing doctors and nurses using a CPOE system at one hospital-that the software was poorly designed and often ignored how the health-care professionals work in a hospital setting.

MedSurg Nursing
June 1, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 133492564
Managing medication errors--a qualitative study; Research for Practice
The Institute of Medicine reports 44,000 to 98,000 people die in hospitals annually as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). Medication errors accounted for 7,391 deaths in 1993, compared to 2,876 deaths in 1983 (Kohn et al., 2000). These medication errors and the adverse reactions connected with them result in increased length of stay, increased cost, patient disability, and death.
The medication delivery process is complex and involves hand-offs between many individuals and departments. Errors may occur at any of the process steps: prescription, transcription, dispensing, or administration. Most error-reporting systems rely on voluntary self-reporting and are imbedded into what remain largely punitive management systems. Nurses widely report reluctance to disclose medication errors, particularly if an error does not result in patient harm (Wakefield, Wakefield, Uden-Holman, & Blegen, 1996; Walker & Lowe, 1998). The purpose of this phenomenologic study was to explore the management of medication errors by practicing nurses by examining the ways that nurses define medication errors and make decisions regarding the reporting of medication errors, and how medication errors affect nurses' day-to-day practice. Results from this study may help nurses and hospital administrators understand the reluctance to report medication errors.

InformationWeek
May 30, 2005
McKesson's E-Health Gambit -- Medical-supplies distributor takes advantage of the health-care industry's increasing reliance on I.T., adding software and services to drugs and stents
"This will be a decade of dramatic transformation," says Pam Pure, an executive VP at McKesson who's also president of its provider technologies division, which sells IT products and services. Pure says the health-care industry will be reinvented over the next eight years-that paper-based records and processes will be replaced by electronic ones, and automated systems will reduce costs and improve patient safety. "There's lots of work and challenges ahead," she says.
President Bush last year set a goal for most Americans to possess electronic medical records by 2014. The effort is being led by national health IT coordinator Dr. David Brailer, who's pushing health-care executives and lawmakers toward digital records, computerized drug-ordering systems for doctors, and other technology the administration says can save money and lives.
According to the Institute of Medicine, part of the government's National Academies for science and technology, between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans a year suffer serious complications or die because of medical mistakes that could be prevented through better technology. And in a report this month, the Department of Health and Human Services said health-care companies spend between $17 billion and $42 billion a year on IT. Brailer estimates that electronic health records alone could save at least 7.5% of costs annually-and perhaps as much as 30%.
 
Modern Healthcare
May 30, 2005
The next payment model;
Reimbursement based only on quality of care is coming soon
On Jan. 1, the CMS will begin delivering the highly anticipated yet much-maligned Medicare prescription drug benefit to beneficiaries, marking the biggest expansion of the program since its creation. The upcoming changes also include new regional PPOs in the rechristened Medicare Advantage (formerly Medicare+Choice) and significant subsidies for lower-income beneficiaries to cover the cost of prescription drugs.
The health policy community, meanwhile, has already been thinking about the next steps in the continuous path to improving Medicare. The Institute of Medicine and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission each have recommended retooling Medicare to support better-quality performance. We wholeheartedly agree that to improve the care that beneficiaries receive, Congress should link new Medicare payments with public reporting of quality information and performance on measures of healthcare quality.
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The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
May 15, 2005 Sunday 
REGIONAL EDITION
HILLARY AND NEWT GIVE A HOOT ABOUT HEALTH-CARE BILL
Newt Gingrich told reporters he had a serious message to deliver about "this," and he didn't want "that" to become the story.
The former House speaker appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton , D-N.Y., last week to speak in support of legislation to promote the use of information technology in health care.
The sight of the Clinton administration's chief congressional tormenter joining the former first lady in a common cause was a man-bites-dog moment. Clinton acknowledged the irony, even as Gingrich tried to ignore it.

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
May 15, 2005 Sunday Broward Metro Edition
NATIONAL NETWORK OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS COULD STREAMLINE PATIENT CARE
Like an oasis shimmering on the horizon, the vision of a national network of electronic medical records looks great from afar. But how will it look up close?
EMRs, as they are called, are a buzzword in health care. President George W. Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush are urging hospitals and doctors to load their patients' medical data into computers that someday could be linked into a giant health database accessible to the entire industry.
The potential is great: Doctors could, in a click, view a patient's full history from symptoms to tests to drugs. Computers could check every prescription and procedure in advance to catch errors. A program could steer doctors to treatments that have worked best for similar patients. EMRs would eliminate countless hours spent passing information by paper and phone. Billions could be saved on duplicated tests and medications.

Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
May 13, 2005, Friday
Nightmare Putnam hospital mess
MUCH of the never-ending "tort reform" struggle involves medical malpractice lawsuits. Amid the emotional battle, one fact should be kept in mind: Medical mistakes kill a horrendous number of Americans.
In 2,000, the U.S. Institute of Medicine estimated that in-hospital errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans a year. Simultaneously, a presidential task force called malpractice a "national problem of epidemic proportions" and estimated that it caused $ 29 billion yearly in needless U.S. cost.

Modern Healthcare
May 9, 2005
Two better than one?;
AHA follows JCAHO lead on patient-safety centers
For the second time in as many months, a prominent U.S. healthcare group has launched a sweeping, if vague, patient-safety initiative. But already, at least one consumer advocate is questioning its relevance.
The American Hospital Association unveiled its fledgling effort to launch a center for healthcare quality May 1 at the Chicago-based trade association's annual meeting in Washington. ``There are too many preventable deaths and injuries and too many errors in our hospitals, and the question of what we are doing about these challenges will not go away,'' said George Lynn, chairman of the AHA's board of trustees, according to the text of his remarks.


National Catholic Reporter
May 6, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 132420302
Malpractice lawyers deserve more credit; COLUMN
Dabbling in dirty politics, George W. Bush has been turning malpractice lawyers into dirty words. They file "junk lawsuits, they file "frivolous lawsuits," they're greedy and, for sure, they are driving doctors out of business.
True to political form, President Bush is a divider, not a uniter. He pits doctors against lawyers, medicine against the law. In the president's larger world of fantasy where it's good guys like him taking on bad guys, casting malpractice lawyers as the nasties comes naturally.

Business Wire
May 3, 2005 Tuesday  1:00 PM GMT
St. Clair Hospital Reduces Medication Administration Errors with Socket Communications Bar Code Scanning Technology; Solution Saves Lives and Increases Hospital Staff Productivity
Socket Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:SCKT), the Mobile Connection(TM) Company, today announced St. Clair Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, selected Socket's bar code scanning technology to upgrade and automate the hospital patient care system. St. Clair is using Socket's In-Hand Scan Card with Pocket PCs in conjunction with Veriscan from Sculptor Developmental Technologies, Inc., a software engineering company dedicated to providing software solutions to the healthcare industry, to reduce medication errors, streamline workflow and improve patient safety.
According to the Institute of Medicine, medical errors kill an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 Americans every year, including 7,000 deaths from medication-related errors alone. At St. Clair, the wireless handheld medication verification system increases patient safety by reducing bedside medication errors. The system provides real-time bedside 5-Rights Medication Verification utilizing Wi-Fi(R) enabled wireless Pocket PCs. The system positively identifies the nurse, patient and medication through Socket's bar code scanning technology to ensure the right patient is receiving the right medication and dose via the right form of administration at the right time.

M2 Presswire
May 3, 2005
SOCKET COMMUNICATIONS: St. Clair hospital reduces medication administration errors with Socket Communications bar code scanning technology; Solution saves lives and increases hospital staff
M2 PRESSWIRE-MAY 3, 2005-SOCKET COMMUNICATIONS: St. Clair hospital reduces medication administration errors with Socket Communications bar code scanning technology; Solution saves lives and increases hospital staff   1994-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD
Socket Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCKT), the Mobile Connection Company, today announced St. Clair Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, selected Socket's bar code scanning technology to upgrade and automate the hospital patient care system. St. Clair is using Socket's In-Hand Scan Card with Pocket PCs in conjunction with Veriscan from Sculptor Developmental Technologies, Inc., a software engineering company dedicated to providing software solutions to the healthcare industry, to reduce medication errors, streamline workflow and improve patient safety.

The Baltimore Sun, Maryland
May 2, 2005, Monday
Medical mistakes: Finding the cure
"Push, push, push, push," urges Dr. Deborah Milstein. "Harder, harder, harder."
Christina Creegan, 22, of Essex, is in the final minutes of labor. Male relatives huddle in a corner of the labor suite, but the women crowd around the bedside. Each of Creegan's two sisters aims a video camera; her mother-in-law and stepmother-in-law lean in with digital still cameras.
"It's going to be a well-documented baby," says Cathy Clevenstine, the stepmother-in-law.

The Baltimore Sun
May 1, 2005 Sunday 
FINAL EDITION
Medical mistakes: Finding the cure;
A regional hospital chain is meticulous in its bid to improve patient safety and curtail malpractice claims;
HOSPITALS
"Push, push, push, push," urges Dr. Deborah Milstein. "Harder, harder, harder."
Christina Creegan, 22, of Essex, is in the final minutes of labor. Male relatives huddle in a corner of the labor suite, but the women crowd around the bedside. Each of Creegan's two sisters aims a video camera; her mother-in-law and stepmother-in-law lean in with digital still cameras.
"It's going to be a well-documented baby," says Cathy Clevenstine, the stepmother-in-law.

Health Data Management
May, 2005
Safety Innovators Put I.T. on the Line;
Some provider organizations are facing medical errors head-on and are using technology to try to bring them under control.
Today's patient safety movement in health care is born out of tragedy. Estimates by the Institute of Medicine put the number of patient deaths caused by preventable medical errors somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 per year.
Staggering numbers, but the story becomes more poignant when broken down to individual cases. Every hospital and integrated delivery system has made serious, irreversible errors, and every one wants to eliminate them.
Preventing medical errors requires a number of commitments, experts say, and the most important is the will to change.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
May 1, 2005, Sunday, Metro Edition
Care traffic control;
Hospitals are borrowing ideas from aviation and nuclear plants in hopes of both improving patient safety and saving money.
Each day, Gina Taack sits in a darkened room in front of five brightly lit and color-coded computer screens, intently monitoring the ever-changing information.
She could be in an air traffic control center, and in some ways, that's kind of what she does. But instead of tracking planes, Taack works in the bowels of United Hospital in St. Paul, tracking patients.
Like planes on the runway waiting for takeoff, patients in the waiting room are identified on one screen by name and the severity of their condition. Other screens track progress in the operating room and the availability of hospital beds, smoothing the patient's trip from takeoff to landing.

The Economist
April 30, 2005 
U.S. Edition
The no-computer virus - IT in the health-care industry;
IT in the health-care industry
The inability, and reluctance, of doctors and hospitals to use information technology more widely is killing thousands of people
"WHETHER or not a treating doctor has Alex's full medical record available can literally mean life or death," says Cynthia Solomon of Sonoma, California. Her son Alex, now in his 20s, grew up with hydrocephalus, a rare and life-threatening condition in which fluid accumulates in the brain and needs to be drained through special shunts. So Ms Solomon had no choice but to become a walking filing cabinet of records on allergies, pituitary-gland problems, brain scans and "every piece of paper a doctor ever wrote about Alex's case." She worried constantly. There were close calls, such as the time that Alex went on a trip and ended up, unconscious, in some distant hospital. Ms Solomon could not get his paper records to the new doctor and had to pray that Alex would not get the wrong antibiotics or be laid on his back, which might have killed him.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
April 24, 2005, Sunday
CORRECTION: Efforts to measure, disclose health care performance gain momentum
The story slugged MW-HOSP-SURVEY, filed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News for Apr. 24, incorrectly stated in the sixth paragraph the penalty for hospitals that don't provide information on health care quality to the federal government. They will have their Medicare payments cut by 0.4 percent.
Please delete the previous version of the story and use the following corrected one.
Efforts to measure, disclose health care performance gain momentum
By Guy Boulton
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Apr. 24--Eight years ago, the Employer Health Care Alliance Cooperative in Madison set out to measure and disclose patient satisfaction at hospitals and large physician groups in south-central Wisconsin.
The hospitals and physicians balked.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)
April 24, 2005 Sunday
Correction Appended 
Final Edition
A prescription for quality;
Efforts to measure, disclose health care performance gain momentum
Eight years ago, the Employer Health Care Alliance Cooperative in Madison set out to measure and disclose patient satisfaction at hospitals and large physician groups in south-central Wisconsin.
The hospitals and physicians balked.
The Alliance worked with them to develop a standard survey on patient satisfaction. Yet when it was time to compile the results, the hospitals and doctors would disclose only the percentage of "excellent" ratings. The next year most of them dropped out of the survey.

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
April 18, 2005 Monday 0 South Pinellas Edition
Ambitious effort aims to save 100,000
Suppose an elderly woman goes into Morton Plant Hospital with a bad case of the flu. She's feverish and tired, but expected to recover.
Instead, the woman gets sicker. Her heart quickens, her blood pressure drops. She could be developing pneumonia or an infection, problems that often kill elderly flu patients.

Chicago Tribune
April 11, 2005 Monday 
Chicagoland Final Edition
Drug-error crackdown at hospitals;
Peoria facility takes the lead in tracking dangerous reactions
The Food and Drug Administration's new crackdown on painkillers and other prescription drugs has hospitals scurrying to remedy one of the biggest sources of adverse drug reactions--hospital medication errors that have the potential to cause harm in 1 in 10 patients, ranging from allergic reactions to life-threatening episodes.
Such adverse drug reactions are a problem that plagues all of America's hospitals. They are a threat to patient health that experts say has long been ignored, overlooked or hidden from view, although they are a major source of hospital-based errors that cause patient deaths.
At St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, for example, computers now churn out 350 to 400 alerts every day warning of possible drug reactions from the nearly 4,000 prescriptions written daily. Many are minor, like a slight rash. But where they could cause serious harm or even death, orders are changed, doses altered and potentially dangerous drugs replaced by safer ones.

Chicago Tribune
April 11, 2005, Monday
Drug-error crackdown at hospitals
The Food and Drug Administration's new crackdown on painkillers and other prescription drugs has hospitals scurrying to remedy one of the biggest sources of adverse drug reactions--hospital medication errors that have the potential to cause harm in 1 in 10 patients, ranging from allergic reactions to life-threatening episodes.
Such adverse drug reactions are a problem that plagues all of America's hospitals. They are a threat to patient health that experts say has long been ignored, overlooked or hidden from view, although they are a major source of hospital-based errors that cause patient deaths.
At St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, for example, computers now churn out 350 to 400 alerts every day warning of possible drug reactions from the nearly 4,000 prescriptions written daily. Many are minor, like a slight rash. But where they could cause serious harm or even death, orders are changed, doses altered and potentially dangerous drugs replaced by safer ones.

Best's Review
April 1, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 131815616
Instant information: health plans are encouraged by the slow, but steady progress in the development of electronic health records; Electronic Health Records
Imagine everything about your medical history--from the prescriptions you take to the results of your last physical examination--available at the click of a mouse, able to be accessed by health-care providers across the country. Technology advances are making that scenario a real possibility, but is health-care information ready to become paperless?
Many health plans think it is, but they predict widespread adoption of electronic health records and the interoperability to share information among health-care providers across the United States won't occur for at least the next decade. The federal government also is gearing up for that time line. In April 2004, President Bush announced a national goal to encourage wider use of electronic health records to allow physicians, hospitals, pharmacies and insurers to share information. Earlier this year, in a speech concerning the National Institutes of Health's proposed tax credits, the president called for the implementation of a national electronic health records system to help reduce health-care costs and medical errors. "We've got 21st century medical practices, but a 19th century paperwork system," he said.

Chicago Daily Herald
March 21, 2005 Monday 
All Editions
It's worth having doctor check your medicines
For your next doctor's appointment or trip to the pharmacy, think about brown bagging it.
No, don't pack your lunch - no matter how long you think you'll have to wait. Rather, pack your prescription and non-prescription medications, as well as your vitamins and herbal products, in that bag. Then, during your visit, review with your health-care professional all your medications for any potential problems.

Des Moines Register
March 20, 2005 Sunday
Letters To The Editor;
It's a dirty world; Hospitals do their best to battle infections, but germs come in the door with every visitor
Regarding the well-written front-page story on the infections at Mercy Hospital Des Moines ("Inspectors: Patients at Mercy Put at Risk," March 13): One might ask why Mercy, historically one of the finest institutions in the state, would experience such a prevalence of bacterial infections.
Hospital-acquired infections have been present since the sick were first institutionalized. All institutions have the same problem, and at any point the best of institutions will have a flare-up of infections.
Employers and insurers are continuing the legitimate struggle for answers to rising health-care costs. Although this is absolutely necessary, cutting clinical funding for front-line workers is no longer an acceptable place to find savings. Nurses are overworked, underpaid and pushed to the limit. They have little or no "thinking time" while on duty, and continue to be burdened with petty paperwork and petty rules that lend nothing to patient care.

The Boston Globe
March 16, 2005, Wednesday  THIRD EDITION
BRIGHAM TO ADOPT BARCODES TO CUT ERRORS
Brigham and Women's Hospital this month is rolling out supermarket-style barcodes on medications and patients' wristbands, one of the first US hospitals to adopt this common food industry technology to reduce overdoses and other dangerous medical errors.
The Harvard Medical School teaching hospital plans to use barcodes on all of its medical and surgical floors by mid-July, and in the operating rooms, emergency department, and obstetrics units by the end of 2006. The system will cost the hospital about $10 million on equipment and training for several thousand nurses.
"This absolutely can prevent certain types of errors," said Fran Griffin, a director at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a Cambridge nonprofit group that helps hospitals improve care. "When people are working in a high-stress, fast-paced environment, it's so easy to grab the wrong drug."

The Boston Globe
March 9, 2005, Wednesday  THIRD EDITION
DRUG-ERROR RISK AT HOSPITALS TIED TO COMPUTERS
Hospital computer systems that are widely touted as the best way to eliminate dangerous medication mix-ups can actually introduce many errors, according to the most comprehensive study of hazards of the new technology. The researchers, who shadowed doctors and nurses in a Philadelphia hospital for four months, found that some patients were put at risk of getting double doses of their medicine while others get none at all.
Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania identified 22 types of mistakes they have made because of difficulty using computerized drug-ordering, such as failing to stop old medications when adding new ones or forgetting that the computer automatically suspended medications after surgery. Some doctors interviewed for the study said they made computer-related mistakes several times a week.

Boston Globe
March 9, 2005, Wednesday
Drug-error risk at hospitals tied to computers
Hospital computer systems that are widely touted as the best way to eliminate dangerous medication mix-ups can actually introduce many errors, according to the most comprehensive study of hazards of the new technology. The researchers, who shadowed doctors and nurses in a Philadelphia hospital for four months, found that some patients were put at risk of getting double doses of their medicine while others get none at all.
Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania identified 22 types of mistakes they have made because of difficulty using computerized drug-ordering, such as failing to stop old medications when adding new ones or forgetting that the computer automatically suspended medications after surgery. Some doctors interviewed for the study said they made computer-related mistakes several times a week.
The findings underscore the complexity of improving safety in US hospitals, where the Institute of Medicine estimates that errors of all kinds kill 44,000 to 98,000 patients a year.

 
US Fed News
March 9, 2005 Wednesday  12:40 AM  EST
REPS. MURPHY, GINGREY COMMENT ON PATIENT SAFETY
Rep. Tim Murphy, D-Pa. (18th CD), issued the following statement:
As Co-Chair of the Healthcare Access and Affordability Team with Rep. Phil Gingrey (GA-11), Rep. Murphy lead an hour long discussion on patient saftey on the House floor. The text follows:
Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, tonight, as part of the Republican Health Care Public Affairs Team, my co-chair, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), and I are here with a couple of our colleagues to talk about, over the next hour, one of the most important things to the people of this great country, and that is health care and our health care system.

Journal of Healthcare Management
March 1, 2005
IAC-ACC-NO: 131198259
97.1 percent perfect: healthcare leadership's pinto; report on medical errors
The March 16, 2003, edition of The New York Times Magazine's cover reads, "Half of What Doctors Know Is Wrong." Inside, the lead story, entitled "The Biggest Mistake of Their Lives," chronicles the struggles of four survivors of medical errors. The article also makes a projection that in 2003, as many as 98,000 people in the United States would die as a result of medical errors (Burton 2003). The August 2, 2004, issue of Newsweek features an article, entitled "Hospital Horrors," that reports that estimates of deaths from medical errors are understated by half (Underwood 2004).
Is this really the current state of healthcare in twenty-first century America? Sadly, it is. The lack of vision, determination, and adequate management methods of those who lead America's healthcare organizations are the reasons.
TO CHANGE YOUR WAYS, YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR MIND

The State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
February 24, 2005 Thursday
Shimkus: Chance for malpractice caps getting better
Proposals to cap the amount of money injured patients can collect from doctors in medical malpractice lawsuits for pain and suffering will stand a better chance of passing Congress this year than in 2003, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus said Wednesday.
More Republicans were elected to the House and Senate in 2004, upping the likelihood of caps reaching the desk of President Bush, an enthusiastic supporter of limits on non-economic damages in malpractice cases, Shimkus said. But the Collinsville Republican, whose district includes parts of both Springfield and Sangamon County, said passage isn't guaranteed in the GOP-dominated Senate because Republicans still don't have enough votes by themselves to stop a likely filibuster by Democrats.
Shimkus told an audience of about 30 doctors, researchers and others at Springfield's Southern Illinois University School of Medicine that he hopes voters focus on the issue as it is debated both in the Illinois General Assembly and Congress and do not depend solely on Washington for meaningful malpractice reforms.

February 23, 2005 Wednesday
 "Risk-Free" Drugs Don't Exist;
Eli Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel says he worries the medicine-safety debate "is too much on the risks," without weighing them with the benefits
Early in his tenure as Chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly (LLY), Sidney Taurel had his Prozac moment. The antidepressant was accounting for nearly a quarter of all of Lilly's sales and even more of its profits. Then in mid-2001, Prozac lost its U.S. patent protection. Sales plunged so much that it took Lilly more than a year to bounce back.
Now, Lilly is hooked on another drug. The $13.86 billion company is getting a third of its sales and perhaps half its net income from its newest antidepressant, Zyprexa. This time, though, Taurel thinks he can avoid a stumble. His plan: Pump out so many new drugs that their sales will more than compensate for Zyprexa's inevitable fall. He may pull it off. Lilly has three other products with annual sales of more than $1 billion. And Strattera, a pill for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, should join the blockbuster club next year.
But Taurel has plenty of other worries. Some of Lilly's other new drugs are falling short of expectations. Meantime, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker, like its brethren, is feeling besieged as more patients turn to outlets in Canada for cheaper medicines. And now the FDA is proposing a new safety board that would monitor drugs. A red flag on the panel's Web site could tank even a blockbuster's sales (see BW, 2/28/05, "Pfizer's Funk").

Copley News Service
February 23, 2005 Wednesday
Shimkus contends there's a better chance for lawsuit reform
Proposals to cap the amount of money injured patients can collect from doctors in medical malpractice lawsuits for pain and suffering will stand a better chance of passing Congress this year than in 2003, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus said Wednesday.
More Republicans were elected to the House and Senate in 2004, upping the likelihood of caps reaching the desk of President Bush, an enthusiastic supporter of limits on non-economic damages in malpractice cases, Shimkus said.
But the Collinsville Republican, whose district includes parts of both Springfield and Sangamon County, said passage isn't guaranteed in the GOP-dominated Senate because Republicans still don't have enough votes by themselves to stop a likely filibuster by Democrats.
Shimkus told an audience of about 30 doctors, researchers and others at Springfield's Southern Illinois University School of Medicine that he hopes voters focus on the issue as it is debated both in the Illinois General Assembly and Congress and not depend solely on Washington, D.C., for meaningful malpractice reforms.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune (San Gabriel Valley, CA)
February 23, 2005 Wednesday
Lawsuit issue aside, it's past time to control medical errors
ONCE again this year, it looks as though Congress will fail to pass medical malpractice reform or do very much about its twin problem, the medical errors that kill or hurt thousands of people every year.
As has happened in the past, the House is likely to approve caps on non-economic damages ["pain and suffering'] in malpractice litigation, but the legislation will be stymied in the Senate.
That body did just pass a major item on the GOP/business tort reform agenda limits on class-action lawsuits but knowledgeable lobbyists say that the trial lawyer lobby retains enough power among both Democrats and Republicans to kill medical malpractice reform, despite President Bush's urgent campaigning.
Bush speaks frequently about the need to control "frivolous lawsuits' and surging malpractice insurance premiums that are blamed for driving emergency room doctors, obstetricians and neurosurgeons out of business.

Tulsa World (Oklahoma)
February 23, 2005 Wednesday 
Final Home Edition
Combating medical lawsuits, errors
Once again this year, it looks as though Congress will fail to pass medical malpractice reform -- or do very much about its twin problem, the medical errors that kill or hurt thousands of people every year.
As has happened in the past, the House is likely to approve caps on non-economic damages ("pain and suffering") in malpractice litigation, but the legislation will be stymied in the Senate.
That body did just pass a major item on the GOP/business tort reform agenda -- limits on class-action lawsuits -- but knowledgeable lobbyists say that the trial lawyer lobby retains enough power among both Democrats and Republicans to kill medical malpractice reform, despite President Bush's urgent campaigning.
Malpractice reform -- principally, a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages -- is a key item on Bush's agenda for containing double-digit increases in health care costs.

Indianapolis Business Journal
February 21, 2005
Shining the spotlight on state's hospital care;
Governor asks state Department of Health for a statewide sytem to report medical errors and quality
To understand why health care providers should be more open about their performance, first think pizza, Dan Evans advises.
You know more about the pizza you buy than the doctor you use, the Clarian Health Partners CEO said recently.
Evans likes talking pizza when he gives speeches about health care quality. He takes his comparison a step further when he explains how hospitals benefit by adding transparency.
COUNTRY:
NORTH AMERICA (79%); UNITED STATES (79%);

Roll Call
February 17, 2005 Thursday
Bush, Congress Must Combat Both Medical Lawsuits and Errors
Once again this year, it looks as though Congress will fail to pass medical malpractice reform - or do very much about its twin problem, the medical errors that kill or hurt thousands of people every year.
As has happened in the past, the House is likely to approve caps on non-economic damages ("pain and suffering") in malpractice litigation, but the legislation will be stymied in the Senate.
That body did just pass a major item on the GOP/business tort reform agenda - limits on class-action lawsuits - but knowledgeable lobbyists say that the trial lawyer lobby retains enough power among both Democrats and Republicans to kill medical malpractice reform, despite President Bush's urgent campaigning.
Bush speaks frequently about the need to control "frivolous lawsuits" and surging malpractice insurance premiums that are blamed for driving emergency room doctors, obstetricians and neurosurgeons out of business.

Pacific Daily News
February 16, 2005 Wednesday
VOICE of the people
Hooray for secretary of Education
(Regarding) the article of Debra Chasnoff, director of the Respect for All Project, protests the banning of an episode of a cartoon, where the hero meets two children whose parents are lesbians (Feb. 7 Pacific Daily News Opinion section): It appears that the ban was in deference to a letter from the secretary of Education, which stated in part: "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode."
Hooray for the secretary! It is about time decent people, who are respectful to every person, do not have to put up with the stench of immoral acts and relations being displayed publicly.
The liberals have long been capitalizing on the unchallenged slogans of "respect for all," "my religion is good as anybody else's," etc. But respect for all does not allow anyone to publicly display or impose the immoral or illegal upon somebody else; and religion that sanctifies crimes is not a license to commit crimes against any person.

Indianapolis Business Journal
February 14, 2005
Shining the spotlight on state's hospital care;
Governor asks state Department of Health for a statewide sytem to report medical errors and quality
To understand why health care providers should be more open about their performance, first think pizza, Dan Evans advises.
You know more about the pizza you buy than the doctor you use, the Clarian Health Partners CEO said recently.
Evans likes talking pizza when he gives speeches about health care quality. He takes his comparison a step further when he explains how hospitals benefit by adding transparency.
COUNTRY:
NORTH AMERICA (79%); UNITED STATES (79%);

NewsRx.com and NewsRx.net
Healthcare Mergers, Acquisitions & Ventures Week
February 12, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Journal and Courier (Lafayette, Indiana)
February 12, 2005 Saturday
Doctor cites access, cost as key health care issues
By Kevin Cullen
An experienced physician can tell, just by looking, whether a patient needs knee replacement surgery.
A $75 X-ray is all that's needed to confirm the diagnosis.
"But you wouldn't believe how many patients ask, 'Aren't you gonna do an MRI?'" Dr. Michael W. Skehan, president and board chairman of Arnett HealthSystem told pharmacy students Friday at Purdue University.
An MRI, a scan using costly magnetic resonance imaging technology, costs $1,600 to $1,800. The patient doesn't care about the cost, because usually he doesn't have to pay for it.

Law & Health Weekly
February 12, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week
February 12, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
February 12, 2005 Saturday SOONER EDITION
REP. MURPHY TRIES MEDICAL ERROR FIX;
MORE SAVINGS THERE THAN IN REDUCING CARE
During the first month of the new congressional session, debate has centered on changes to Social Security, but Pennsylvania Rep. Tim Murphy is urging that more attention be paid to what he sees as a far more immediate problem for most Americans: health care.
Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, a psychologist and co-chairman of the 21st Century Health Care Caucus, has been giving a weekly series of speeches on the House floor, asking colleagues to focus less on scaling back care to save money and more on reducing medical errors, which would both reduce costs and protect patients.
"This is the key issue," he said. "During campaign time, people kept saying: 'It's terrorism, it's Iraq.' I said, 'It's health care.' ... We have to set a major shift and a long-term plan for what we're doing here, and not just say, 'O.K., what Band-Aid can we put on it this year,' because that doesn't help Americans."

MD Week
February 11, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
February 10, 2005 Thursday
COMMITTEE: HOUSE ENERGY AND COMMERCE
MEDICAL LIABILITY
Statement Of Mr. J. Robert Hunter Director of Insurance Consumer Federation of America
Committee on House Energy And Commerce Subcommittee On Health
February 10, 2005
-- The "hard" insurance market, which took hold shortly after September 11, 2001, and the insurance industry's own business practices are largely to blame for the rate shock that physicians have experienced in the last few years--Recent data shows that sharp medical malpractice insurance rate increases have ended. In 2004, medical malpractice premiums rose by just four percent. These rates are expected to level out for the next few years--The rate problem was caused by the classic turn in the economic cycle of the industry, sped up--but not caused by--terrorist attacks-- Further limiting patients' rights to sue for medical injuries would have virtually no impact on lowering overall health care costs. Medical malpractice insurance costs as a proportion of national health care spending are miniscule, amounting to 60 cents per $100 spent--Insurer losses for medical malpractice have risen slowly in the last decade, by less than the rate of inflation--Malpractice claims have not "exploded" in the last decade.


NBC News Transcripts
SHOW: Today 7:00 AM EST NBC
February 9, 2005 Wednesday
Who to trust regarding health care
MATT LAUER, co-host:
Today we begin a special series, WHO CAN YOU TRUST?, we'll start with one of the single most important decisions you can make, who to trust with your health care. Sometimes, that decision is based on too little information. And the consequences can be dangerous, even deadly. According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, more than 5300 doctors were disciplined for unprofessional conduct, medical negligence and sexual misconduct in 2004. Some of the worst cases have been documented in news reports and captured on videotape. And all are a reminder to be careful of who you trust with your health. NBC's Lester Holt reports.
LESTER HOLT reporting:

Life Science Weekly
February 8, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Science Letter
February 8, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Health & Medicine Week
February 7, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

Managed Care Weekly Digest
February 7, 2005
MEDICAL ERRORS;
Medical mistakes linked to 20 deaths in Minnesota hospitals
Twenty patients died in Minnesota hospitals during a 15-month period because of medical errors or oversights including falls, faulty medical equipment and administering the wrong medication, the state Health Department said in a new report.
The report, released January 19, 2005, documented 99 serious errors between July 1, 2003, and October 6, 2004. Minnesota is the first state to report its mistakes under standards developed by the National Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit. New Jersey and Connecticut also adopted the standards, which are being considered elsewhere.

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
February 7, 2005, Monday Transcript #8158
LENGTH: 8899 words
 Priorities and Programs;
Time of Hope;
Medical Errors;
Patriotic Spectacle
JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this day; then the president's new budget proposal, with differing reactions from Senators Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad; an update report on peace progress between Israel and the Palestinians; a health unit look at ways to prevent deadly medical errors; and some thoughts from sports author John Feinstein about the varied meanings of the Super Bowl.
NEWS SUMMARY
JIM LEHRER: President Bush sent his 2006 budget to Congress today. It marked the opening of a major battle over federal priorities. The budget totaled more than $2.5 trillion, with a record deficit of $427 billion. Overall, it would boost spending for defense and homeland security, but cut scores of other programs. The president said it sets priorities in a fiscally responsible way. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called it a "hoax" because the costs of Iraq and Social Security changes were not included. We'll have our full coverage of the story right after the News Summary. Israel and the Palestinians announced plans today for a formal cease-fire, to end four years of violence. Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon will formally declare the truce tomorrow at a summit in Egypt. An Israeli representative said it's the first step in getting back on track toward a peace agreement.

Daily News (New York)
January 29, 2005 Saturday 
SPORTS FINAL EDITION
PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF
Five years ago, state Health Commissioner Antonia Novello promised to halve the frequency of medical mistakes, which injure - or kill - thousands of New Yorkers each year. What has she accomplished? Precious little, according to a report released yesterday by a coalition of consumer groups.
Dr. Novello announced her pledge in response to the landmark study by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, which, based on studies in New York and elsewhere, estimated that errors by doctors, nurses and other health-care providers nationwide contribute to the deaths of 44,000 to 98,000 patients annually and injure many thousands more. The cost of patching up survivors was pegged at $29 billion a year. New York's share of the pain was 3,000 to 7,000 unnecessary deaths and $1 billion to $2 billion in costs.

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
January 29, 2005 Saturday 
SUNRISE EDITION
NEW TACTIC: NO INJURY = NO LAWSUIT
Among long-running feuds -- Indians vs. Pakistanis, Palestinians vs. Israelis -- peaceful progress is as rare as desert rain. One exception may be emerging. Oregon doctors and medical-malpractice lawyers should soon have fewer reasons for mutual hostility.
Lawyers sue doctors for bad outcomes on patients. Doctors try to put caps on jury awards and attorneys' contingency fees. Consumer groups try to require regulatory hearings and accountability for medical-malpractice or health-insurance rate increases.

Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth)
January 20, 2005, Thursday
Duluth, Minn., hospital has highest death rate in state from mistakes
The Minnesota Department of Health on Wednesday released, for the first time, data from the state's 145 hospitals showing the number of medical mistakes and accidents that led to "adverse health events."
The data shows that 20 people died in hospitals including four deaths at St. Luke's hospital in Duluth, the most of any single healthcare facility in the state. One person died at St. Mary's Medical Center. They were the only hospitals in Northeastern Minnesota to report "adverse health events." Only three other hospitals, which like St. Luke's are among the busiest and most prestigious statewide, had more than one death: Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina with three, and St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester and Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, both with two.
Four people were seriously disabled in 99 different incidents from July 2003 through Oct. 6, 2004. Statewide, however, 115 hospitals reported no adverse events.

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
January 20, 2005, Thursday
First-time Minnesota study finds 20 fatal hospital errors
In the first public disclosure of its kind, Minnesota hospitals acknowledged medical errors that caused 20 deaths and four serious disabilities over a 15-month period, according to a report released Wednesday.
Thirty hospitals across the state reported preventable errors such as bedsores, fatal falls or surgery on the wrong body part or patient. In all, there were 99 cases of preventable errors during the study period from July 1, 2003, to October 6, 2004.
The report, which was required by a new state law, provides a baseline in measuring a problem that so far has lacked reliable comparisons nationally. There is no way to compare Minnesota's results nationally because no state has conducted a similar report.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
January 20, 2005, Thursday, Metro Edition
Hospital errors revealed;
30 hospitals reported 99 mistakes and 20 deaths in 15 months.;
Health officials say the state's error registry can help reduce mistakes.
Minnesota hospitals performed surgery on the wrong body parts, gave the wrong medications or made other mistakes that endangered patients 99 times in a 15-month period starting in the summer of 2003, according to the first such report in the nation.
The report, released Wednesday by the Minnesota Health Department, said that 20 deaths were associated with hospital errors, including eight people who died after falls and four after medication errors.
Until now, these kinds of numbers were among the most closely guarded secrets in medicine. Now, Minnesota hospitals are required by law to report 27 kinds of mistakes or preventable accidents known as "never events," which experts say never should happen.
In all, 30 of 145 hospitals reported at least one "never" event between July 2003 and October 2004. Some of the most respected - and largest - hospitals were among those reporting the most errors in the first of what will be an annual report.

US Fed News
January 19, 2005 Wednesday  2:52 AM  EST
MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH PUBLISHES FIRST-EVER REPORT ON ADVERSE EVENTS IN MINNESOTA HOSPITALS
The Minnesota Department of Health issued the following news release:
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) today released the first-ever report on preventable adverse events in Minnesota hospitals. These events include errors that hospitals should always strive to prevent, such as wrong-site surgery, death from medication error, and serious disability from falls.
The legislation creating the adverse health event reporting system and calling for public reporting was championed by Minnesota hospitals and was signed into law in 2003. The Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) and MDH have been working closely together to implement the new law.

The Denver Post
January 7, 2005 Friday 
FINAL EDITION
Let courts decide on doctors
This week, President Bush urged Congress to limit the damages that patients can collect for medical malpractice, because doctors "should be focusing on fighting illnesses, not on fighting lawsuits."
That's true, but the counterargument is that doctors should heal patients, not kill them.
I accept on faith that nearly all doctors do their best to cure patients of injury or disease. But doctors, like all humans, make mistakes. The only difference is that their mistakes can be deadly.

The Denver Post
January 7, 2005 Friday 
FINAL EDITION
Let courts decide on doctors
This week, President Bush urged Congress to limit the damages that patients can collect for medical malpractice, because doctors "should be focusing on fighting illnesses, not on fighting lawsuits."
That's true, but the counterargument is that doctors should heal patients, not kill them.
I accept on faith that nearly all doctors do their best to cure patients of injury or disease. But doctors, like all humans, make mistakes. The only difference is that their mistakes can be deadly.

The Cincinnati Enquirer
January 4, 2005 Tuesday Final Edition
Rx robot does all except give shot
Mixes medications, prepares syringes
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center soon will use a robot to mix intravenous medications and prepare its syringes, a move that should reduce the potential for errors and improve patient safety.
The robot, about the size of three refrigerators strapped together, can fill 300 syringes an hour, each with a custom dose and a bar-code label routing it to a particular patient.
Although no local statistics are available, an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 people a year die from medical errors of all kinds in hospitals nationwide. Of those, medication errors account for about 7,000 deaths a year, according to the U.S. Institute of Medicine.

The Hindu
January 3, 2005
FT-ACC-NO: A2005010259-A331-GNW
SWEET PILL
THE CHARM of the United States never dies for the Indian youth. Right now, dramatic changes in the healthcare system on Uncle Sam's soil are throwing open the doors for medical professionals and students of medicine from all over the world, if the words of Peter Coggan, the Director of Medical Education with Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, are to be believed.
Mounting expectations of patients, changes in the way medicine is practised, expansion of outpatient services, need for more medical schools, general flaws in the system and above all, shortage of physicians, nurses and other medical professionals are believed to be fuelling the opportunities for Indian and international medical graduates.
.

.Institute of Medicine Report    .