It is disappointing when otherwise intelligent, insightful people simply choose to ignore facts and fail to protect the very people they have sworn to serve.

It is no secret that many industry-wed lawmakers have been working for a long time to place damage caps on injuries caused by the negligence of others.

Those same industry-owned lawmakers stand for protecting the profits of hospitals and insurance companies over the protection of citizens. These are legislators and executive branch folks who are willing to sacrifice our rights in the interests of promises to lobbyists or keeping alive their favorite bill.

Currently, Congress, state legislators and governors are busy trying to protect corporate healthcare and insurance companies on the backs of victimized patients. Add to that a concerted effort to dismantle the only attempt, albeit flawed, to fix a flawed and dysfunctional health care system. These politicians are not builders; they seek to create or enhance nothing. These lawmakers want to dismantle anything lobbyists tell them to defeat in the best interests of their corporate constituents.

Fact: It has been estimated that medical errors cause $17 – $29 billion every year in lost income, disability and healthcare.

Fact: The Department of health & Human Services estimates that medical errors result in $4.4 billion in additional Medicare costs.

Fact: Patient rights have been taken away or diminished in 48 of the 50 states already. This has done nothing to improve health care quality or costs in any of those 48 states.

Fact: In the 48 states already enacting limits on the rights of the injured there has been no tangible savings in terms of insurance reductions or health care cost reduction.

Fact: Preventable medical errors cause the death of 98,000 people each year (Institute of Medicine). Limiting the constitutional right of injured victims has done nothing to improve the quality of health care or to reduce the numbers of injured people or the number of patients killed by preventable medical care errors.

Fact: Defensive medicine is a myth dreamed up by those who desire increased corporate profits. Defensive medicine may be motivated more by a desire to increase profits to doctors and hospitals as the alleged defensive medicine.

Fact: The “lawsuit crisis” is a well conducted campaign of propaganda, spin and lies.

Fact: Lawsuits filed by injured people represent a very small percentage of the total burden on the court system. Actually, the largest numbers of lawsuits involve divorce, estates and corporations suing each other.

Fact: Passing laws to protect one special class of Americans to the detriment of the majority of Americans is in violation of the constitution. Protecting doctors, hospitals and insurance companies while denying patients their rights, is simply unfair and unlawful.

Fact: The groups fighting the hardest to infringe on the rights of citizens of individual states are the same groups who have repeatedly told Americans that “Big Government” is bad and that the federal government should stay out of the business of the states. So much for smaller government.

Fact: People in favor of tort reform can not use facts to support their arguments. They rely on hyperbole and spin fed to them by groups supported by business interests.

Fact: Who will pay for the costs of medical care, lost income and rehabilitation caused by medical errors if the rights of victims to pursue legal remedies are taken away? You and I will pay through increased taxes to fund medicare, social security and increased insurance premiums.

Fact: Who will benefit from taking away rights? Hospitals, insurance companies and corporations.

Before you take a position on this very important constitutional battle, educate yourself, be informed, and do not blindly accept information given to you by anyone.

Read, research and rely on your own common sense.

Who is paying for all these campaigns and lobbyists who have the ears of YOUR law makers?

A 2009 study published by the New England Journal of Medicine analyzed almost 12 million Medicare beneficiaries and found:

• 20% of patients were readmitted within 30 days of discharge
• 34 % of patients were readmitted in 90 days of discharge
• 67.1% of patients percent were readmitted one year after discharge or had died

This revolving door effect cost Medicare $17.4 billion dollars in 2004 and the problem continues to escalate.

Medicare is responding by collecting data on all hospitals and will keep a running three-year average on readmission rates. Those hospitals having high rates will be financially penalized.

According to a Medicare Payment Advisory Commission study, 75 percent of all 30-day hospital readmission are preventable and if they can be avoided, the quality of patient care will improve. Higher rates of hospital readmission are associated with infections and other complications acquired by patients during hospital stays.

In a pilot project in which hospitals were paid bonuses and held accountable for better outcomes and less bounce backs, quality improved and readmission rates fell substantially.

The cause for patients having to readmit patients after a hospital stay seems to fall into one of the following categories:

1. Lack of communication between patient and doctor
2. Complete lists of medications missing from patients
3. Follow-up appointments were never made or communicated
4. Wound care or other instructions were confusing or never received
5. No official hand-off from one physician to another
6. Insufficient monitoring of patients after discharge — especially regarding medications

Medicare does not currently pay hospitals for monitoring or mentoring patients after discharge.

(more…)

Following published reports and extensive media coverage regarding egregious behaviors in the medical profession, public awareness of physician and hospital errors has increased. Despite that increased attention, data suggests that the rate of reporting by physicians is lower than it should be.

In the JAMA July 14 issue, one of the major themes covered was research articles and commentary on the Physician Peer Review process and its effectiveness. The medical peer review is the process by which a committee of physicians examines the work of a peer and determines whether the physician under review has met the accepted standards of care in rendering medical services. This process is put in place specifically to assure physicians that their statements will remain confidential when commenting on the behaviors of their colleagues (many of whom are a physician’s primary referral sources).

An original research study titled “Physicians’ Perceptions, Preparedness for Reporting, and Experiences Related to Impaired and Incompetent Colleagues” found that overall, “…physicians support the professional commitment to report all instances of impaired or incompetent colleagues in their medical practice to a relevant authority; however, when faced with these situations, many do not report.

(more…)

New studies show that hospital deaths increase sharply in July causing a “July Effect”. The study illustrates the need for patients to practice caution while accepting medical care in that month or over the weekend days.

A recent study by the University of California at San Diego demonstrates that fatal medication errors rose 10 percent in July at teaching hospitals in the United States. This “July Effect,” doesn’t seem to mean that hospital staffs are running amok, but that more medication errors seem to be the culprit in teaching hospitals. The study investigated more than 62 million U.S. death certificates between 1976 and 2006. Of those, 244,388 deaths were caused by medication errors in hospitals such as dispensing the wrong medications, overdoses, and accidents involving drugs or biological agents.

The researchers examined certificates of inpatients, outpatients, and those who died in the emergency department, in which medication error was recorded as the primary cause of death. Counties containing teaching hospitals experienced a 10 percent rise in fatal medication errors in July, whereas counties lacking teaching hospitals did not experience that spike.

(more…)

With all the hype about H1N1 and other flu and cold viruses, we have become an uber-clean society, where hand sanitizers and disinfectant wipes are as common in households as the paper towel. But is this cleanliness having an effect on our children?

Most experts conclude that our desire to be super clean and safe from germs may actually be hurting our children. While there is a legitimate cause of concern with serious illnesses, such as H1N1, we may have gone overboard when it comes to protecting our children from dirt and germs.

Thom McDade, PhD, associate professor and director of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern University states that, “Just as a baby’s brain needs stimulations, input, and interaction to develop normally, the young immune system is strengthened by exposure to everyday germs so that it can learn, adapt, and regulate itself.” In a recent study McDade also found that children who were exposed to more animal feces and had more cases of diarrhea before age 2 had less incidence of inflammation in the body as they grew into adulthood. This inflammation has been linked to chronic adulthood illnesses, such as heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s. The study analyzed data collected from thousands of children over two decades in the Philippines.

“We are moving beyond this idea that the immune system is just involved in allergies, autoimmune diseases and asthma, and beginning to think about its role in inflammation and other degenerative diseases,” McDade adds.

According to medical professionals, we are over sanitizing infants’ environments that may cause more harm than good. It is a parent’s desire to keep their child from germs, but in that desire, we may be depriving them the opportunity to build a strong immune system.

Hand washing is still the number one prevention of spreading infections and diseases, as discovered by Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister more than 160 years ago. By no means is this study suggesting that we let our little ones run around covered in dirt and filth. But it is meant to serve as an eye-opener to parents that a little prevention goes a long way in preventing the spread of germs. The old adage, “everything in moderation” may apply quite well to this study. Being dirty is fun for kids, and a little dirt may actually improve their health into adult hood.

“I hope this research will promote some thinking about the potential cost of a zealous public health effort to promote hand washing and hand sanitizer use,” McDade said.

If you are one of the estimated 15 million Americans who will have a surgical procedure this year, pay attention, please! You and your loved ones may thank me later.

Every single time anyone has a surgical procedure performed, whether the surgery is life-saving or elective, there are risks involved. That “simple” and “routine” tonsillectomy for your five year old can actually result in death. The liposuction that your Aunt Sally has always wanted to remove those saddle bags could leave her with a pulmonary embolism. Nothing is without risk, even though most surgical procedures are much safer than they used to be – picture that bullet removal from Marshall Dillon’s chest from an old episode of “Gunsmoke” and you know what I mean.

(more…)

Is the phrase, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” in the constitution? Popular belief is yes, but it is not actually in the constitution. Rather, this phrase comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It is probably a concept that should have been incorporated into the constitution and certainly Lincoln included it to remind citizens that it is their country. I think politicians, and even some of us, forget that it is OUR government and the politicians are OUR employees; they are supposed to be working in OUR best interests.

Business interests are fond of complaining about the jury system and regularly claim that it is “broken”, it needs to be “fixed”. Perhaps the best word is, in fact, “fixed”; they would like to fix the civil justice system so that it can be better influenced in their direction. Should we hold it against them because they work to achieve an unfair playing field? We should not hate Big Corporations for this, but should we allow them to achieve it? Absolutely not!

I think the jury system our founding fathers borrowed from English common law works just fine in protecting the rights of individual citizens. Frankly, I want six of my fellow citizens sitting and listening to evidence in my case. I want six regular people considering what makes sense and what does not make sense. I do not want a special panel appointed to hear my case, as has been promoted by many business “political parrots”. I do not want the government inserting itself into the civil justice system anymore than they already do. I trust an impartial panel of my fellow citizens to fairly weigh the evidence and reach a decision that makes sense.

(more…)