Community Health Digest

12/18/2009 Rise of the Smart Patient in the Global Health Market

12/18/2009  Rise of the Smart Patient in the Global Health Market

Medical Tourism 

Some of the most important organizations that work on accrediting institutions include The International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua), ...

12/17/2009 Holding Doctors Accountable for Medical Errors

12/17/2009 Holding Doctors Accountable for Medical Errors

New York Times - Pauline W. Chen -

Ten years ago, a national panel of health care experts released a landmark report on medical errors in the American health care ...

12/14/2009 Patient Photos Help Reduce Hospital's Medication Errors

12/14/2009  Patient Photos Help Reduce Hospital's Medication Errors

HealthLeaders Media

After a medication error occurred on the adult inpatient unit resulting from the misidentification of a patient, Mason and the committee reviewed other ...

12/11/2009 Ill. medical error reporting law to be implemented

12/11/2009  Ill. medical error reporting law to be implemented

Chicago Tribune - Lindsey Tanner

When the Illinois Adverse Health Care Event Reporting Law is fully in place, hospitals will be required to report major medical errors within 30 days to the ...

12/10/2009 Most Hospital Patients Don't Know What Meds They're Taking

12/10/2009 Most Hospital Patients Don't Know What Meds They're Taking

Palm Beach Post 

To catch medication errors, patients first have to know something about the medicines they're taking. So for this study, Cumbler and colleagues surveyed 50 ...

12/10/2009 Medical Mistakes: To Err is Too Common

12/10/2009 Medical Mistakes: To Err is Too Common

24-7PressRelease.com

More than 2 percent of all hospital patients are victims of a medical error. Health care discussions need to address elimination of this problem. ...

12/10/09 - Most Primary Care Physician Practices Appear Too Small To Adequately Measure ...

12/10/09 Most Primary Care Physician Practices Appear Too Small To Adequately Measure ...

Newswise (press release) 

... rates of mammography for women 66 to 69 years, and hemoglobin A1c testing for 66- to 75-year olds with diabetes, preventable hospitalization rate, ...

12/08/2009 Drug Mistakes Common in US Kidney Dialysis Patients

12/08/2009 Drug Mistakes Common in US Kidney Dialysis Patients

ABC News 

"The results of this study illustrate the problem of medication errors in the United States, as well as the need to make patient safety a priority on the ...

12/02/2009 Rising obesity rates imperil health gains

12/02/2009 Rising obesity rates imperil health gains

Los Angeles Times - Jeannine Stein 

A New England Journal of Medicine study published Wednesday looked at previous national health surveys to forecast life expectancy and quality of life for a ...

11/30/2009 Collaborative working empowers staff to cut the number of cardiac arrests

11/30/2009 Collaborative working empowers staff to cut the number of cardiac arrests

Nursing Times 

Emma Donaldson, mbchb, MA, is quality improvement research fellow, Salford Royal Foundation Trust; Peter Murphy,MA, RGN, is assistant director of nursing ...

11/24/09 20 Advances to Be Thankful For

11/24/09 20 Advances to Be Thankful For Wall Street Journal- News about health often focuses on the negative: scary new flu viruses, incurable diseases, dashed hopes for miracle drugs. Maybe that's because we have such high expectations that doctors and scientists can fix anything. 

11/23/2009 Burned Out, Depressed Surgeons More Likely to Commit More Major Medical Errors

11/23/2009 Burned Out, Depressed Surgeons More Likely to Commit More Major Medical Errors  Science Daily  The new findings suggest that the mental well-being of the surgeon is associated with a higher rate of self-reported medical errors, something that may ...

11/19/2009 Following the patient journey to improve medicines management and reduce errors

11/19/2009 Following the patient journey to improve medicines management and reduce errors  Nursing Times - ‎Nov 19, 2009‎

Medication errors account for 10–20% of all adverse events and cost the NHS £200-400m per year (DH, 2004). Box 1 explains terms in patient safety incidents. ...

11/19/09 Errors in Surgical Procedures Persist

11/19/09 Errors in Surgical Procedures Persist

U.S. News & World Report - Steven Reinberg 

Bagian noted that good numbers for evaluating medical errors are hard to come by. It may be that the specialties reporting the most errors are just more ...

11/16/09 - CDC Reports US Smoking Rates Still High

11/16/09 CDC Reports US Smoking Rates Still High

Gov Monitor

Second-hand smoke is known to cause cancer, heart disease, and many other health problems, and smoke-free laws have many benefits, including protecting ...

11/16/2009 Experts question motives of mammogram guidelines

11/16/2009  Experts question motives of mammogram guidelines

Reuters - Julie Steenhuysen, Eric Beech 

Critics of the guidelines, issued on Monday by the US Services Task Force, an independent panel sponsored by the US Agency for Healthcare Quality, ...

11/13/09 - 10 Ways to Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now

11/13/09 10 Ways to Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone - Catherine Arnst‎

A 2005 study estimated that every dollar spent on such medication-adherence programs can save $7 for patients with diabetes, $5 for those with high ...

11/10/09 - Doctors' visits lasting longer, study says

11/10/09 Doctors' visits lasting longer, study says

Boston Globe - Elizabeth Cooney 

Some visits grew more than others: general medical exams lasted 3.4 minutes longer, diabetes visits were 4.2 minutes longer, hypertension visits were 3.7 ...

11/09/09 Doctors Spending More Time Now With Patients

11/09/09 Doctors Spending More Time Now With Patients

U.S. News & World Report - Steven Reinberg

9 (HealthDay News) -- Family doctors are now taking more time consulting with adult patients, seeing them more often and improving the quality of visits, ...

11/09/09 Lack of health care worsens women's life quality: WHO

11/09/09 Lack of health care worsens women's life quality: WHO

Reuters - Laura MacInnis 

GENEVA (Reuters) - Despite living six to eight years longer than men, women lack essential health care throughout their lives, ...