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Washington, DC-based URAC, an independent, nonprofit accreditation organization, has unveiled significant revisions to its health information technology standards. The changes affect health web site accreditation and URAC's HIPAA Privacy and Security standards.
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Oftentimes HIPAA standards are not as straightforward as a hospital leader might hope or expect — but that's by design, says Beth Hjort, RHIA, CHPS, professional practice resource manager for the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
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According to Jill M. Steinberg, a health care attorney with Baker Donelson in Memphis, TN, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) would prevent an ED physician from discussing a patient's HIV status with any other person, even if that person could be potentially exposed to an infectious disease.
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While brain death is widely accepted as a way of defining when death has occurred, this determination, or category of death, can create its own set of problems.
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"Defining Wisdom," a project of The University of Chicago across multiple disciplines, awarded Lauris Kaldjian, MD, PhD, in 2008 a grant to develop a framework for medical decision making.
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One ethical dilemma nurses face when they move from clinical care to clinical research (CR) is the way the two fields' missions are different with regard to patients.
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Clinical trial (CT) sites should be providing research nurses and other staff with the best possible foundation in clinical research ethics, as well as helping them make the transition from clinical care to research trials, experts say.
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The House of Delegates of the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago at its November 2008 meeting in Orlando voted to ask The Joint Commission for a moratorium on its disruptive physicians policy, introduced in July 2008 and scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2009. A decision on the matter was not reached prior to press time.
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United Kingdom's Baroness Mary Warnock, considered an expert on medical ethics, created a stir in late 2008 with her suggestion that those in the UK with dementia have a duty to die, so as not to strain public health resources.
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On Nov. 4, 2008, Washington state voters passed a ballot initiative giving terminally ill patients with six months to live the right to have a physician prescribe lethal drugs for the patient to self-administer to bring about his or her death.
