-
About 650 surgical fires are reported in U.S. hospitals each year, according to the nonprofit ECRI Institute in Plymouth Meeting, PA, and there are another three to four times as many near-misses. Fires during surgery can be extremely serious, causing significant injuries and death to both patients and clinicians.
-
A recent example of a surgical fire reported by Mary A. Herman, MD, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, illustrates how such an incident can occur in routine circumstances.
-
The risk of infection from exposure to a patient's bodily fluids gained great attention over the past 20 years, spurred by the risk of exposure to HIV, and that heightened awareness has led to improvements in needlestick prevention. But another route of exposure to bodily fluids has not received adequate attention, say some experts.
-
Health care providers are becoming more familiar with the many errors that can trigger a RAC audit, but what is much lesser known among the health care community is that a patient's mismanagement of Medicare set-aside (MSA) funds post-settlement also could trigger an audit.
-
During a three- to four-month period, an 86-year-old man with a history of severe and varied health problems was transferred back and forth between a local hospital and nursing home for recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs).
-
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published an interim final rule incorporating provisions of the Health Information Technology for Clinical and Economic Health (HITECH) Act related to HIPAA violations that significantly increase the penalties it can levee against employers and health care providers.
-
[Editor's note: With this month's issue of Medical Ethics Advisor, we mark 25 years of efforts to bring you the most up-to-date research and news in the ethics arena of health care. Going forward, we hope to continue this tradition, and we invite you, the readers, to share your own ideas and experiences with our editorial advisory board and editor.]
-
One fortunate change in 25 years is that medical ethics has entered the mainstream of discussion and debate, but increased visibility can have unfortunate drawbacks, as well.
-
The Montana Supreme Court issued a ruling just as 2009 ended, on Dec. 31, which determined Montanans have the right under that state's public policy to seek a physician's aid in assisted suicide, with no threat of sanction or legal action against the physician.
-
With the advent of consumer-directed health care (CDHC), two professors argue, contrary to the common notion that physicians should ignore financial considerations when treating patients, that it is entirely appropriate for physicians to be sensitive to a patient's financial position when a patient is paying out of pocket.
