DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Latest from DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog - Page 2

August 30, 2021

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The coronavirus keeps ripping through the country with a fourth, Delta-variant fueled surge that also is producing confounding, confused behaviors that only add to the pandemic’s considerable gloom. The pandemic, which already has killed at least 635,000 Americans and infected just under 40 million of us, is slamming hospitals. More than 100,000 coronavirus patients, including rising numbers of children and younger patients, are jamming intensive care and other units in numbers not seen since the…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Spiking deaths, health crises, and amputations: Diabetes is ‘out of control’

By Patrick A. Malone

August 27, 2021

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More than 100,000 people in this country died last year due to diabetes. That’s 17% more than the year before. And in younger age groups, it’s even worse: deaths from diabetes climbed 29% last year among those ages 25-44, federal data show. The figures should raise huge alarms that diabetes, as exposed by the coronavirus pandemic, is “out of control,” reported Chad Terhune, Robin Respaut, and Deborah J. Nelson for Reuters news service. Their investigation,…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

A million bucks of surgical machinery? It’s not proven better — at least for patients

By Patrick A. Malone

August 26, 2021

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If big hospitals really want to keep surgeons happy and provide them with greater comfort during procedures, why not build giant, sanitary glass garages next to operating rooms and let docs park their Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and Bugattis there for ogling and maybe even to take a break under the vehicles’ hoods? Okay, maybe we’re being a bit too snarky. Yet that hyperbolic scenario just might be cheaper and more medically justifiable than the sustained embrace…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Delta surge gets grimmer as both public health steps and resistance stiffen

By Patrick A. Malone

August 24, 2021

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The coronavirus has killed almost 630,000 Americans, with the pandemic adding in its fourth surge now under way 1,000 deaths a day or 42 fatalities per hour. The disease has infected almost 38 million of us, with more than 145,000 new cases occurring each day in recent weeks. More than 90,000 coronavirus patients were in hospitals nationwide in the last week, more than in any previous surge except last winter’s, the New York…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Millions stuck in nightmarish recalls of sleep apnea breathing devices

By Patrick A. Malone

August 22, 2021

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Millions of patients with serious, diagnosed sleep disorders now are wrestling with a daytime nightmare: Medical devices designed to help them avoid damage from their conditions have been recalled for major and concerning defects. But consumers complain that they’re getting poor and too little information about their health options until the device maker more fully addresses the products’ problems. The manufacturer under regulatory and consumer fire is Royal Philips NV, which has recalled…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Questions grow about billions flowing to specialists over medical hardware

By Patrick A. Malone

August 20, 2021

Patients, regulators, hospitals, and doctors themselves need to open their eyes and ask tougher questions about the eyebrow-raising trend occurring among a specialized set of “sawboneses” — orthopedists and neurosurgeons. Hundreds of them are profiting handsomely, not on their medical skills but rather their investments in and relationships with surgical hardware. The specialists also are increasingly reliant, in dubious fashion, on medical device salespeople. Fred Schulte, an investigative reporter with the independent, nonpartisan Kaiser…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

VA, in a slap at FDA, will decline to cover newly approved Alzheimer’s drug

By Patrick A. Malone

August 19, 2021

The nation’s largest integrated health system has declined to cover a drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease. The action is not only a rebuke by the Department of Veterans Affairs to the FDA, it also offers support of sorts to a plea by President Biden for a way that he says Congress could help slash at soaring prescription drug prices. The drug that the VA…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Senate Democrats tackle nursing home menaces that also made virus so lethal

By Patrick A. Malone

August 17, 2021

Senate Democrats, including chairs of two powerful committees, have started to tackle the nightmarish problems that experts blame for allowing the coronavirus pandemic to take a terrible toll on vulnerable residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Under a bill introduced by Ron Wyden, an Oregon senator and chair of the Senate Finance Committee (shown above, left), and Bob Casey Jr., a Pennsylvanian and chair of the Aging Committee (above, right), federal…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

To battle pandemic, vaccine boosters, more mandates and fights with the resistant

By Patrick A. Malone

August 15, 2021

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As the latest coronavirus surge worsens, public health efforts to quell the pandemic are targeting two groups that might be dubbed the can’t-s and won’t-s. Federal regulators sought to assist the first group by approving coronavirus vaccination booster shots for a select group of patients — those whose compromised immune systems could not generate sufficient protection with standard shot regimens. Experts say that individuals who have undergone organ transplants or who may be undergoing cancer…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Risky heart pump shows how FDA fails patients on medical device regulation

By Patrick A. Malone

August 13, 2021

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The federal Food and Drug Administration too often fails to protect patients from defective and dangerous medical devices because it lets manufacturers self-police themselves, cozies up to companies rather than trying to compel safety fixes, and inadequately informs the public and medical community about problem products. If that sounds like too broad and harsh an indictment of poor performance by a purported watchdog agency, just read the deep dig by ProPublica, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

As Delta variant slams hospitals, forecast warns of 100,000 more virus deaths

Spiking deaths, health crises, and amputations: Diabetes is ‘out of control’

A million bucks of surgical machinery? It’s not proven better — at least for patients

Delta surge gets grimmer as both public health steps and resistance stiffen

Millions stuck in nightmarish recalls of sleep apnea breathing devices

Questions grow about billions flowing to specialists over medical hardware

VA, in a slap at FDA, will decline to cover newly approved Alzheimer’s drug

Senate Democrats tackle nursing home menaces that also made virus so lethal

To battle pandemic, vaccine boosters, more mandates and fights with the resistant

Risky heart pump shows how FDA fails patients on medical device regulation

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