Med Mal News

Electromagnetic Interference From ID Technologies Could Pose Safety Threat

Authors of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) warn health care facilities that the move toward using electronic autoidentificaiton technologies to improve patient safety and track medical equipment could pose a risk to patients because of electronic interference with critical care medical equipment. Van der Togt, et al., Electromagnetic Interference from Radio Frequency Identification Inducing Potentially Hazardous Incidents in Critical Care Medical Equipment. JAMA Vol. 299 No. 24, June 25, 2008. The researchers tested 41 medical devices (unconnected to patients) from 22 different manufacturers by putting them near two radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. They ran three tests per medical device ' 123 all together ' and found that the RFID induced 34 electromagnetic interference incidents. In light of their findings, the researchers advised facilities to run controlled tests for electromagnetic interference potential before using new RFID devices in critical care environments.

Padding the Medicare Bill

It began with a homeless shelter worker's suspicion that he was witnessing “patient dumping” outside a Los Angeles homeless shelter (patient dumping is the practice of discharging hospital patients who have no apparent home or other place to go, then dropping them off, unannounced, outside of homeless shelters, or simply on the streets). Moore, The New York Times, 8/10/08. After the worker reported to the authorities what he'd seen, the reality of the situation turned out to be something else altogether: People who apparently wanted to swindle money from state and federal medical insurance programs were picking up indigent people and taking them to hospitals for treatments they did not need. In fact, there are allegations that some of the medical care billed to Medi-Cal and Medicare was never provided at all. A federal investigation led to the arrests Aug. 6 of a hospital owner and top executive and his accomplice, who allegedly recruited homeless people to take part in the plot. The two were charged with conspiring to receive and pay kickbacks for patient referrals and with committing health care fraud, among other charges.

Equipment Made for Large Hands Unsuited to Many Female Surgeons

Researchers writing for the medical journal Surgical Endoscopy have reported on what should, perhaps, have been obvious to medical equipment manufacturers but somehow has not yet been adequately addressed; women have smaller hands, so female surgeons who must use medical equipment that is supposed to be “one size fits all” often struggle to do things their male counterparts can do with comparative ease. Adams, Danielle, et. al., One Size Does Not Fit All: Current Disposable Laparoscopic Devices Do Not Fit the Needs of Female Laparoscopid Surgeons. Surgical Endoscopy (6/14/08). The authors conclude that surgical device manufacturers should address the issue by offering their products in smaller sizes.

String of Plane Crashes Plagues Volunteer Medical Transport Organization

The summer of 2008 was particularly dangerous for patients and pilots taking part in humanitarian medical transport flights through the nonprofit organization Angel Flight. This organization matches volunteer pilots with patients who need to fly to medical facilities for treatment. In June, a plane traveling with a 2-year-old patient and her mother on board crashed shortly after take-off from an Iowa City airport, killing the toddler. In July, all three people on board an Angel-Flight-arranged flight out of a Tampa airport were killed during take-off. The latest tragedy involving an Angel Flight transport plane happened on Aug. 12, when a plane being flown from Westhampton Beach, NY, crashed in a shopping center parking lot. The plane was carrying a cancer patient, his wife and the pilot, and was en route to Logan Airport in Boston. All three on board died in the crash.

Receiver Means Business

On Aug. 13, Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver for California's prison medical system, asked a federal judge in San Francisco to seize $8 billion from the state treasury over the next five years to fund construction of seven new prison medical facilities. Kelso is the successor to the first receiver, who was appointed by a federal court in 2006 to overhaul California's prison medical system after the court found the care provided to inmates was so substandard it violated prisoners' constitutional rights. Kelso's demand comes as California struggles with a $17 billion budget shortfall that forced Gov. Arnold Schwartznager in July to order temporary cuts to the pay scales of 200,000 state-workers ' from their normal wage rates to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour. Undeterred by the State's fiscal dilemma, Kelso asked the court to hold the Governor in contempt and impose a $2 million per day fine if the State fails to pay into the court-controlled account. In court filings, Kelso told the judge, “It is with great reluctance, and yet a sense of firm conviction,” that he seeks the $8 billion for construction.

Hospital Safety Encouraged Through Flu Vaccination Program

Noting that during the 2005-2006 flu season only 42% of health care providers surveyed were vaccinated against flu, the Joint Commission has issued what it terms “The Flu Vaccination Challenge.” The Challenge, which runs from September 2008 to May 2009, will offer special recognition to hospitals that achieve a 43% or greater vaccination rate in their employees. In a release, Barbara M. Soule, R.N., M.P.A., C.I.C., Practice Leader, Infection Prevention and Control Services, JCR, said of the Joint Commission's goal in instituting the Challenge, “The Flu Vaccination Challenge highlights for health care workers the value that flu vaccinations can have on patient safety. Doctors, nurses, technical and administrative staff may care for patients with compromised immune systems including the elderly and people living with a chronic disease. As a professional devoted to 'do no harm,' flu vaccination gives me an opportunity to help protect my patients by decreasing the chances that I will get the flu and pass it along to my patients”

The push comes hot on the heels of the publication of a paper by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (part of the National Institutes of Health) that claims most of the deaths attributed to the famous 1918 flu pandemic were in fact caused by secondary bacterial pneumonia infections. The bacteria entered the core of a flu sufferer's body by migrating from where it normally lives, in the noses and throats of healthy people, through pathways created when the flu destroyed cells lining the lungs and bronchial passageways.

The release describing the study may be accessed at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2008/niaid-19.htm.

Electromagnetic Interference From ID Technologies Could Pose Safety Threat

Authors of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) warn health care facilities that the move toward using electronic autoidentificaiton technologies to improve patient safety and track medical equipment could pose a risk to patients because of electronic interference with critical care medical equipment. Van der Togt, et al., Electromagnetic Interference from Radio Frequency Identification Inducing Potentially Hazardous Incidents in Critical Care Medical Equipment. JAMA Vol. 299 No. 24, June 25, 2008. The researchers tested 41 medical devices (unconnected to patients) from 22 different manufacturers by putting them near two radio frequency identification (RFID) devices. They ran three tests per medical device ' 123 all together ' and found that the RFID induced 34 electromagnetic interference incidents. In light of their findings, the researchers advised facilities to run controlled tests for electromagnetic interference potential before using new RFID devices in critical care environments.

Padding the Medicare Bill

It began with a homeless shelter worker's suspicion that he was witnessing “patient dumping” outside a Los Angeles homeless shelter (patient dumping is the practice of discharging hospital patients who have no apparent home or other place to go, then dropping them off, unannounced, outside of homeless shelters, or simply on the streets). Moore, The New York Times, 8/10/08. After the worker reported to the authorities what he'd seen, the reality of the situation turned out to be something else altogether: People who apparently wanted to swindle money from state and federal medical insurance programs were picking up indigent people and taking them to hospitals for treatments they did not need. In fact, there are allegations that some of the medical care billed to Medi-Cal and Medicare was never provided at all. A federal investigation led to the arrests Aug. 6 of a hospital owner and top executive and his accomplice, who allegedly recruited homeless people to take part in the plot. The two were charged with conspiring to receive and pay kickbacks for patient referrals and with committing health care fraud, among other charges.

Equipment Made for Large Hands Unsuited to Many Female Surgeons

Researchers writing for the medical journal Surgical Endoscopy have reported on what should, perhaps, have been obvious to medical equipment manufacturers but somehow has not yet been adequately addressed; women have smaller hands, so female surgeons who must use medical equipment that is supposed to be “one size fits all” often struggle to do things their male counterparts can do with comparative ease. Adams, Danielle, et. al., One Size Does Not Fit All: Current Disposable Laparoscopic Devices Do Not Fit the Needs of Female Laparoscopid Surgeons. Surgical Endoscopy (6/14/08). The authors conclude that surgical device manufacturers should address the issue by offering their products in smaller sizes.

String of Plane Crashes Plagues Volunteer Medical Transport Organization

The summer of 2008 was particularly dangerous for patients and pilots taking part in humanitarian medical transport flights through the nonprofit organization Angel Flight. This organization matches volunteer pilots with patients who need to fly to medical facilities for treatment. In June, a plane traveling with a 2-year-old patient and her mother on board crashed shortly after take-off from an Iowa City airport, killing the toddler. In July, all three people on board an Angel-Flight-arranged flight out of a Tampa airport were killed during take-off. The latest tragedy involving an Angel Flight transport plane happened on Aug. 12, when a plane being flown from Westhampton Beach, NY, crashed in a shopping center parking lot. The plane was carrying a cancer patient, his wife and the pilot, and was en route to Logan Airport in Boston. All three on board died in the crash.

Receiver Means Business

On Aug. 13, Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver for California's prison medical system, asked a federal judge in San Francisco to seize $8 billion from the state treasury over the next five years to fund construction of seven new prison medical facilities. Kelso is the successor to the first receiver, who was appointed by a federal court in 2006 to overhaul California's prison medical system after the court found the care provided to inmates was so substandard it violated prisoners' constitutional rights. Kelso's demand comes as California struggles with a $17 billion budget shortfall that forced Gov. Arnold Schwartznager in July to order temporary cuts to the pay scales of 200,000 state-workers ' from their normal wage rates to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour. Undeterred by the State's fiscal dilemma, Kelso asked the court to hold the Governor in contempt and impose a $2 million per day fine if the State fails to pay into the court-controlled account. In court filings, Kelso told the judge, “It is with great reluctance, and yet a sense of firm conviction,” that he seeks the $8 billion for construction.

Hospital Safety Encouraged Through Flu Vaccination Program

Noting that during the 2005-2006 flu season only 42% of health care providers surveyed were vaccinated against flu, the Joint Commission has issued what it terms “The Flu Vaccination Challenge.” The Challenge, which runs from September 2008 to May 2009, will offer special recognition to hospitals that achieve a 43% or greater vaccination rate in their employees. In a release, Barbara M. Soule, R.N., M.P.A., C.I.C., Practice Leader, Infection Prevention and Control Services, JCR, said of the Joint Commission's goal in instituting the Challenge, “The Flu Vaccination Challenge highlights for health care workers the value that flu vaccinations can have on patient safety. Doctors, nurses, technical and administrative staff may care for patients with compromised immune systems including the elderly and people living with a chronic disease. As a professional devoted to 'do no harm,' flu vaccination gives me an opportunity to help protect my patients by decreasing the chances that I will get the flu and pass it along to my patients”

The push comes hot on the heels of the publication of a paper by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (part of the National Institutes of Health) that claims most of the deaths attributed to the famous 1918 flu pandemic were in fact caused by secondary bacterial pneumonia infections. The bacteria entered the core of a flu sufferer's body by migrating from where it normally lives, in the noses and throats of healthy people, through pathways created when the flu destroyed cells lining the lungs and bronchial passageways.

The release describing the study may be accessed at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/aug2008/niaid-19.htm.