These sobering numbers show the urgency of “bending the cost curve down,” as the pundits like to say. Unfortunately the urgency of reforming the safety and quality of health care has taken a far back seat to the money discussion. They actually are compatible goals.
Continue ReadingHealth Care Reform
How Good Is U.S. Health Care? It Depends on the Yardstick
Measured by results — preventable deaths and injuries due to malpractice, medical errors, preventable infections, misdiagnosis and other events that shouldn’t happen — American health care has a lot of problems. Millions of patients are injured every year, and upwards of 200,000 patients die annually from preventable errors and hospital-acquired infections. The United States also….
Continue ReadingFighting Hospital Infections: When Less is More
The deadly MRSA infection, estimated to kill 19,000 Americans every year (more than the toll from AIDS), has been virtually wiped out in Norway, with three simple steps: As described in a recent Associated Press article: Norway’s model is surprisingly straightforward. — Norwegian doctors prescribe fewer antibiotics than any other country, so people do not….
Continue ReadingFrom Bitter Tragedy to Optimistic Hope: A True Patient Safety Story
Actor James Woods’ brother Michael died of a heart attack three years ago in an emergency room hallway in Rhode Island because no one was paying attention. Now, something good will come from Michael Woods’ death, thanks to a settlement reached between the Woods family and Kent Hospital in the middle of a jury trial…..
Continue ReadingReforming Health Care One Pilot Project at a Time
How is our medical care system like American agriculture before the era of modern food-growing practices? Pretty similar, argues Dr. Atul Gawande in the New Yorker. Both were expensive, wasteful of human resources and completely fragmented. And the cures for their problems could be similar too. What reformed American farming and turned it into a….
Continue Reading“Defensive Medicine:” A Doctor Speaks Out on the Lack of Link between Malpractice Lawsuits and Medical Costs
A piece by a doctor in Salon.com puts the lie to claims from the medical industry that a dose of “tort reform” to curb medical malpractice lawsuits will lower medical costs and make for safer health care. Quite the opposite, as pediatrician Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. explains. Two short excerpts below from his article, which….
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