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            Potentially preventable medical errors that occur during or after surgery may cost employers nearly $1.5 billion a year, according to new estimates by the Department of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in Rockville, MD.
           
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            This is the first of a two-part series on disruptive physicians. The next issue of Healthcare Risk Management will include more advice on how to address the problem.
           
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            Sharmen Lane, a time management consultant and president of SharSpeaks LLC, with offices in New York and California, offers these tips for getting the most work done in the allotted time:
           
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            The privacy breach involving medical records of celebrities treated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center was even bigger than what was reported months ago, according to a report from the state.
           
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            If you want to give patients gift cards as a way to say "sorry" for that long wait in the emergency department or anything else that left them unhappy, feel free. The government says you're not violating any prohibitions on improper remuneration.
           
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            A man with a prior medical history of atrial fibrillation experienced shortness of breath and seizure-like activity two days after breaking his leg. Doctors ordered an ECG, chest X-ray, and CT scan, although there was a four-hour delay in obtaining the results of the CT scan.
           
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            The SCIP Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) is not just for clinicians. There is a message for patients as well: Know the risks and protect yourself.
           
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            The Minnesota Department of Health has issued guidelines for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that address an issue the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left unresolved: when to discontinue contact isolation precautions.
           
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            Conceding that there is too much debate and controversy about the practice, the Joint Commission has dropped a proposed requirement in its 2009 patient safety goals to conduct active surveillance cultures (ASC) for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
           
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            An increasing number of hospitals are applying an exotic-sounding philosophy to solve an all too ordinary problem: patient infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).