December 27, 2006 - Chicago Tribune
If you get a bad meal at a restaurant, you expect the manager to tell you it's on the house. Similarly, if the plumber wrecks your sink instead of fixing it, you don't pay him. That's the American way of commerce. Do the job right or forget about getting paid in full.Except for doctors and hospitals. When they foul up big time, they often get paid more, the result of more surgeries and extended hospital stays. And that adds billions to the nation's medical bill--not to mention the toll in patient suffering and even deaths. Read more...
Friday, January 05, 2007
Nurses increasingly buried by paperwork, redundant duties
By Jennifer Booth Reed
Nurses belong with patients.That's like saying teachers belong with students and athletes belong with spectators.But, apparently, patient care is not where they've been spending most of their time. "People just got inundated with the paperwork," said Dr. Nelayda Fonte, a Lee Memorial trauma surgeon who's watched the role of nurses evolve over the years — and not for the better. "Nurses are no longer allowed to be nurses." Read more...
Nurses belong with patients.That's like saying teachers belong with students and athletes belong with spectators.But, apparently, patient care is not where they've been spending most of their time. "People just got inundated with the paperwork," said Dr. Nelayda Fonte, a Lee Memorial trauma surgeon who's watched the role of nurses evolve over the years — and not for the better. "Nurses are no longer allowed to be nurses." Read more...
The Most-Avoided Conversation in Medicine
By PAULINE W. CHEN - Dec 26th, 2006
J. R. was an auto mechanic of French Canadian descent with a perfectly square gap between his two front teeth and the slightly off-kilter face of a retired boxer. Soon after I met him on the surgical ward, after he had been found to have cancer, he developed a habit of planting himself in front of me whenever I got within 100 feet of his room, to spin stories about his life, wax poetic about his girlfriend, and offer free auto-repair advice. Read more...
J. R. was an auto mechanic of French Canadian descent with a perfectly square gap between his two front teeth and the slightly off-kilter face of a retired boxer. Soon after I met him on the surgical ward, after he had been found to have cancer, he developed a habit of planting himself in front of me whenever I got within 100 feet of his room, to spin stories about his life, wax poetic about his girlfriend, and offer free auto-repair advice. Read more...
Doctor's bankruptcy filing provides malpractice haven
By Phil Galewitz - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer - Sunday, December 24, 2006
Dr. Jacques Farkas thought he would be sued as soon as the surgical drill slipped from his hands and sliced the exposed nerves in his patient's lower back.
"This may be a lawsuit," Farkas told an operating room nurse during the 2001 procedure.
Two years later, Thelma McAloon did sue the neurosurgeon and JFK Medical Center in Atlantis. The mistake left the Boynton Beach woman with no control of her bladder or bowels, pain in her legs, numbness in her feet and no feeling in her vagina. Read more...
Dr. Jacques Farkas thought he would be sued as soon as the surgical drill slipped from his hands and sliced the exposed nerves in his patient's lower back.
"This may be a lawsuit," Farkas told an operating room nurse during the 2001 procedure.
Two years later, Thelma McAloon did sue the neurosurgeon and JFK Medical Center in Atlantis. The mistake left the Boynton Beach woman with no control of her bladder or bowels, pain in her legs, numbness in her feet and no feeling in her vagina. Read more...
The Spine as Profit Center
By REED ABELSON - Dec. 30th, 2006
Spinal-fusion surgery is one of the most lucrative areas of medicine. An estimated half-million Americans had the operation this year, generating billions of dollars for hospitals and doctors.
But there have been serious questions about how much the surgery actually helps patients with back pain and whether surgeons’ generous fees might motivate them to overuse the procedure. Read more...
Spinal-fusion surgery is one of the most lucrative areas of medicine. An estimated half-million Americans had the operation this year, generating billions of dollars for hospitals and doctors.
But there have been serious questions about how much the surgery actually helps patients with back pain and whether surgeons’ generous fees might motivate them to overuse the procedure. Read more...
Home-health providers penalized
By Jane Erikson - ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Nurses' failure to communicate with doctors contributed to the deaths of two Tucson patients and led to substandard care of at least 30 others, state investigators found.
Each of the patients received care from one of four Tucson home health-care agencies: Dependable Home Health Inc., fined $6,000 for violations of Arizona Department of Health Services rules; Read more...
Nurses' failure to communicate with doctors contributed to the deaths of two Tucson patients and led to substandard care of at least 30 others, state investigators found.
Each of the patients received care from one of four Tucson home health-care agencies: Dependable Home Health Inc., fined $6,000 for violations of Arizona Department of Health Services rules; Read more...
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