During a recent hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, a serious patient safety allegation was raised by a panel of respected leaders on this very subject. This panel asserted that over the past 15 years, patient safety advances have been inconsistent, limited and sporadic in nature. Specifically, the panel noted that since the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s “To Err is Human” 15 years ago, patients continue to die and to sustain serious injuries due to preventable medical errors at devastating rates. Many hospital administrators take issue with this pronouncement. According to Modern Healthcare, numerous hospital groups contend that patient safety [...]

According to a poll recently conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only 22 percent of respondents are confident that they can successfully research and compare the quality of healthcare providers in their area. This poll confirms that Americans feel that due to their own limitations, due to limited resources or both, it is difficult to find and compare the quality of care that physicians provide. We frequently write about the ways in which patient empowerment aids in ensuring patient safety. After all, if patients are aware that one physician has a checkered history of medical malpractice and another has a spotless patient [...]

Addiction is a disease that is ravaging our country. Like most other diseases, addiction does not discriminate. We often hear about the fatal heroin overdoses that claim young people in their teens and twenties. But alcohol and other drugs – both legal and illegal – are slowly and secretly killing victims of all ages and professions, including physicians. Obviously, drug and alcohol abuse can lead to dangerous impairment at work. But for the 10 percent of American doctors thought to be struggling with active addiction to drugs or alcohol, the stakes are much higher. Hospitals have a responsibility to closely monitor their physicians for signs of [...]

The chances that a doctor will recommend a cesarean section to a woman going into labor are higher in certain hospitals than in others. In Southern California the rate can even vary in the same locality. For example, at Los Angeles Community Hospital the rate of low-risk deliveries resulting in a C-section is 55 percent whereas California Hospital Medical Center (also in L.A.) has a rate of 11 percent. Apparently this is not an isolated phenomenon. There are a number of other metropolitan areas where the rate of C-sections varies from hospital to hospital as well. […]