When you went to the hospital or birthing center for the delivery of your child, you were probably nervous about the well-being of your baby. The arrival of your child was a significant event, and the hospital stay likely brought joyful visitors and tender moments of bonding. However, for the staff of nurses and doctors, […]
Last week, our blog discussed how recent reports have outlined how two patients who underwent heart transplant procedures at UPMC Presbyterian hospital died last October and this past June after contracting a fungal infection in the cardiothoracic intensive care unit. As shocking as this was, we also discussed how these same reports revealed that a […]
Over the last year, our blog has been closely following the patient safety threat posed by contaminated duodenoscopes, which are essentially specialized endoscopes placed down the throats of patients and used to treat a variety of digestive system disorders. To recap, the problem with duodenoscopes is their design is such that biological material can remain […]
Medical malpractice and wrongful death cases caused by hospital negligence can happen in all sorts of ways. Whether it is Legionnaire’s Disease believed to be caused by drinking water, or a serial infector like David Kwiatkowski who swaps out fentanyl with saline to get high, cases of negligence in the medical community are widespread. One […]
The first stop for medical care for many of those brave men and women who served in our nation’s armed forces is one of the 150 medical centers or nearly 1,400 facilities that together comprise the Veterans Health Administration, the single largest integrated health care system in the nation. Indeed, the VA system provided care […]
Without a doubt, two of the most important metrics for any hospital — public or private — are patient outcomes and cost savings. While these two considerations may seem so diametrically opposed that there is no good way to improve them simultaneously, this isn’t necessarily the case. Indeed, private hospitals across the nation have long […]
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare — the health care advocacy organization comprised of some of the nation’s foremost hospitals and health systems that utilizes “a systematic approach to analyze specific breakdowns in care and discover their underlying causes” — recently released a new online resource designed to combat one of the more prevalent […]
For several months now, our blog has been following the infection epidemic associated with duodenoscopes, a medical device run down the throat that is used roughly 650,000 times per year here in the U.S. to treat gastrointestinal issues like tumors, gallstones and other blockages in the pancreatic and bile ducts. The infection risk posed by […]
Last time, we discussed how past studies have found the work-hour restrictions for medical residents, introduced by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education back in 2011 as a means of reducing potential fatigue-related medical errors, had little impact on outcomes among general surgical patients. We also touched on how a recently published study by […]
While long hours have traditionally been viewed as one of the rites of passage for physicians-in-training, experts long wondered whether this was necessary or even dangerous, perhaps contributing to a greater number of fatigue-related medical mistakes. Interestingly enough, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the body responsible for setting the various standards governing […]
