March 24th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Primary Care Wednesdays, Research
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Ten years after the release of the IOM report To Err is Human, which documented the toll taken by medical errors in this country, the question remains: What can be done to reverse the trend of ever-increasing morbidity and mortality due to medical errors? Last December, a look back over the decade since the release of To Err is Human — and a steady medical error death rate of about 100,000 per year included a series of suggestions for tweaks to the health care delivery system that may help ameliorate the situation. Earlier this week, a gadget that enforces good handwashing technique by sniffing caregiver and clinician hands for soap before a hospital patient may be touched has been touted as potentially saving significant costs related to HAIs.
Today, the Lucian Leape Institute released a report titled Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care which focuses on moving back the point in time where an intervention is needed to reverse the trend documented in To Err is Human and since. Leape and his colleagues at the National Patient Safety Foundation are now focused on reinventing the medical school curriculum, so that patient safety will be taught more effectively in medical schools. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
March 10th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, News
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MITA Executive Director Dave Fischer spoke with HealthBlawg last week about industry efforts to control radiation dose in diagnostic radiology modalities such as CT.
A congressional hearing on radiation dose control took place the day after we spoke, and the FDA will be holding a hearing on diagnostic radiology issues in late March. Earlier last week, timed in part perhaps because of the upcomng congressional committee hearing, MITA kicked off the dose check initiative, a tool for manufacturers and providers to use in better regulating diagnostic imaging radiation dose, which Dave Fischer describes in our interview. He also referred to the CMS demonstration project on appropriateness of imaging services now underway, authorized by MIPPA. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
February 28th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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The Massachusetts health reform law, Part II – enacted in 2008 – laid the groundwork for cost control and quality improvement, as a follow-on to the initial legislation’s emphasis on achieving near-universal coverage. The legislation authorized several studies — including a report published a few months back on global payment strategies — and set the stage for hearings on health care cost containment to be held before the state Division of Health Care Finance and Policy (DHCFP), which are scheduled to begin March 16, 2010.
Update 2/18/10: Paul Levy posted a series of questions DHCFP would like hospitals to answer at the hearings at Running a Hospital. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
February 16th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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An often overlooked tool in health care providers’ struggle with the malpractice crisis is the medical apology. Two thirds of the states provide some form of protection for the medical apology (i.e., a simple apology is not admissible in court as an admission of culpability), and settlements reached post-apology are almost invariably lower than they would be otherwise. (In the current environment, articles on medical apologies are popping up everywhere … even in the NY Times business section.)
It is important to note that an effective apology policy does not stop with the simple apology — I’m sorry that this happened to you — but must include a commitment to conduct a root cause analysis, to communicate the results to the patient and/or patient’s family, to implement systems improvements based on the results of the root cause analysis, and to offer a specific apology once the analysis is complete, and an offer of monetary compensation if the provider or its systems were at fault. Of course, it’s easier to describe these steps than to actually carry them out. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
