...Now
we learn about the curious case of Robert Monroe, a 50-year-old health
executive who is accused of voting a dozen times in 2011 and 2012,
including seven times in the recalls of Scott Walker and his GOP ally
Alberta Darling. Wisconsin officials say it’s the worst case of multiple
voting in memory.
Oh, and, did I mention he’s a Republican?
Monroe got my attention because he’s from the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, where I went to high school. Television coverage of the case
focused on Shorewood’s quaint Village Hall, where I registered to vote
at 18, and where Monroe allegedly filled out an absentee ballot for his
son, who voted in person a few towns away, which helped trigger the
investigation. Monroe lives six blocks away from where I grew up.
Investigators
say Monroe voted twice for Alberta Darling in her 2011 recall, and five
times for Walker in the June 2012 recall. He’s used his own name, his
son’s name and his girlfriend’s son’s name. (They can’t be sure exactly
whom he voted for in each case, but he gave money to Darling and
Walker.) Then in the November presidential election, he voted first in
Shorewood, then again in Lebanon, Indiana, where he also owns a home. He
claims he had temporary amnesia and doesn’t remember any of the
Election Day events...
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
reassigned the director of the bioterror lab behind the potential
anthrax exposure of dozens of scientists and staff, sources told
Reuters, as the anthrax controversy intensified. Michael Farrell, head
of the CDC's Bioterror Rapid Response and Advanced Technology
Laboratory, has been reassigned as the agency investigates the incident,
two CDC scientists who are not authorized to speak with press told
Reuters.
The possible
exposure has forced as many as 84 employees at the agency's Atlanta
campus to get a vaccine or take powerful antibiotics with known side
effects to ward off potentially deadly anthrax disease.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner declined to comment on Farrell. Calls and e-mail to Farrell were not returned.
On
Friday, the CDC gathered staff at a meeting, where individuals in labs
adjacent to the affected areas complained they had not been properly
informed about the anthrax incident first discovered on June 13, Skinner
said.
In a Friday e-mail
to staff, CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden apologized for delays in
informing the wider CDC community about lapses in the high-profile
bioterror lab.
"We waited too long to inform the broader CDC workforce," he wrote in the email obtained by Reuters.
According
to the CDC, some time between June 6 and June 13, workers in the
bioterror lab were trying out a new protocol for killing anthrax before
sending the bacteria for use in two lower-security CDC labs.
CDC
spokesman Skinner on Sunday said the bioterror lab sent the anthrax
bacteria to other labs in closed tubes. The recipients agitated the
tubes and then removed the lids, raising concerns that live anthrax
could have been released into the air.
Both
of the CDC scientists Reuters spoke with believe the risk of infection
is very slight because only a tiny amount of anthrax was sent out of the
bioterror lab.
On June
18, a team of CDC scientists used swabs and wipes to take samples from
all lab surfaces that might have been contaminated.
Skinner
said results from the first two days of tests have been negative, but
the CDC will continue watching the samples for another six days to see
if anything grows.
Dr. Paul Meechan, director of the CDC's environmental health
and safety compliance office, first disclosed the possible
anthrax exposure to Reuters on Thursday.
(Editing by Peter Henderson)
Don't let this story worry you too much. These people were unworthy of blue-dot-level medical care. You're much more worthy of care in the eyes of UCLA. You'll get at least purple-dot treatment. Unless, perhaps, your health problem itself is a red-dot problem. (In case you missed it: irony alert!)
SYLMAR>> Olive View-UCLA Medical Center
has agreed to pay $40,750 to settle a patient dumping case involving a
man who waited in the hospital’s emergency department for more than six
hours and never received care for his pain and acute appendicitis,
federal officials announced Thursday.
The settlement was made between Olive View and the Office of Inspector General
of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services based on a case
in 2011. Federal officials said the Sylmar facility violated the
Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act by “failing to provide an
individual with an appropriate medical screening examination within the
capability of the hospital’s emergency department in order to determine
whether he had an emergency medical condition.”
According to the complaint, a man complaining of abdominal pain
waited in Olive View’s emergency department for more than six hours
where he received no care. He left and received medical treatment at
another hospital, where he was diagnosed with acute appendicitis among
other medical issues and underwent an immediate laparoscopic
appendectomy.
Olive View has since made several corrections,
Olive View spokeswoman Azar Kattan said. Those include additional
physicians assigned to provide rapid medical screening to patients given
a triage score of at least 3. On the 1-5 scale, a triage score of 1 is
most urgent, Kattan said.
She also said the computer system was modified to provide real-time alerts to the nursing staff among other actions.
“These
corrective actions were accepted by the regulatory agencies involved at
the time of the original citation in 2011,” Kattan said in a written
statement. “We believe they have corrected the problems identified and
ensure the timely assessment and treatment of patients seeking care in
our emergency room.”
A man who says he broke his ankle while playing soccer is suing Kaiser Permanente
for nearly $50,000, claiming various medical staff repeatedly told him
he only had a sprain -- and his fracture went undetected for seven
painful months.
A Kaiser spokesman couldn’t offer an immediate comment Monday. But
according to Andrew P. Newcomb’s lawsuit, Newcomb went to Kaiser’s Tualatin medical offices
on Nov. 9, 2011, seeking treatment for an injury he suffered during an
indoor soccer game. The next day, he was given an X-ray and physician
assistant Jeffrey Myers told him his ankle was not broken, the suit
states.
“...Myers diagnosed plaintiff Newcomb as having a ‘severe sprain,’
and recommended rest, ice, compression and elevation of the foot, and
Advil, up to 500 mg twice a day with food,” states the suit, filed
Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
According to the suit:
Two and a half months later, Newcomb’s ankle continued to bother him
-- causing him to limp and use crutches. So he made another visit to
the Tualatin medical offices. Dr. Louis H. Liu ordered an MRI and
recommended physical therapy after diagnosing Newcomb with “arthralgia” -- commonly known as joint pain -- of Newcomb’s ankle or foot.
Two months later, when his ankle had still not improved, Newcomb
went in again and Dr. Christopher Jason Rae, an orthopedic specialist at
Kaiser, diagnosed Newcomb with a sprain.
More than one and a half months later, Newcomb’s ankle still ailed
him. So he spoke to Rae, who ordered an MRI and again diagnosed Newcomb
with joint pain.
Less than two weeks after that, Newcomb’s ankle was still hurting so
he saw Dr. Kimberly Workman, a Kaiser orthopedic specialist, who looked
at Newcomb’s November 2011 x-ray and diagnosed him with a “closed
fracture foot, talus." It was June 13, 2012, and more than seven months had passed since Newcomb had been injured.
Newcomb underwent surgery to repair his ankle and after some physical therapy, his ankle recovered, the suit states.
Newcomb seeks $3,500 for medical and care costs and $46,400 for
months of “continuous physical pain and suffering, difficulty sleeping,
anxiety, emotional distress and depression,” the suit states.
The suit was filed by Portland attorney Danna Fogarty.
-- Aimee Green
Though
it is the most expensive in the world, the U.S. healthcare system ranks
lowest in quality and efficiency according to a new report.
The 2014 Commonwealth Fund survey found that the United States
ranks lowest when it comes to quality and efficiency of healthcare
systems among 11 industrialized countries.
The healthcare system of the United States has been a topic of heated
debate in the last decade but its performance has always remained
consistent, ranking worst among industrialized countries for the fifth
time. It was also the case in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010. The United
Kingdom was ranked as the best while Switzerland followed closely
behind. The researchers also studied Australia, France, Canada, the
Netherlands, Germany, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden.
The report said
the United States spent $8,508 on healthcare per person in 2011 but the
United Kingdom only spent $3,406 per person even as it ranked higher in
providing quality and safe healthcare than the U.S. All other 10
nations spend a lot less than the U.S. healthcare per person and as a
gross domestic product but still achieved better quality.
The United States offers the most expensive healthcare system but
being the worst in quality among its 11 peer countries, people
questioned whether or not Obamacare will help improve things. Based on
the analysis, the U.S. healthcare system is poor on various measures
such as preventable deaths and infant mortality because one-third of
Americans reported skipping tests or treatment because of its high
costs. The country got poor scores on healthy life expectancy at 60
years of age.
The U.S. was third in preventive care and providing tests and
treatments for chronically ill patients. However, it got poor scores on
primary care physicians' prompt attention and access to needed services.
It was lowest in equity, outcomes and efficiency. People reported that
the high insurance expenditure is not commensurate to patient
satisfaction or service quality. The U.S. healthcare system has high
coverage gaps and personal costs which undermine the U.S. government's
efforts to improve it.
"Disparities in access to services signal the need to expand
insurance to cover the uninsured and to ensure that all Americans have
an accessible medical home," the report said. It suggests a need for
equity across the country because the lack of universal healthcare is a
key difference between the United States and other industrialized
nations.
The Affordable Care Act increases the number of Americans with
improved access to care and further encourages the efficient delivery
and organization of healthcare and investment in population health and
important preventive measures.
Dr. Victor Yu and Dr. Janet Stout said they were forced out after making complaints in 2006.Credit
Jeff Swensen for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Staff members at dozens of Department of Veterans Affairs
hospitals across the country have objected for years to falsified
patient appointment schedules and other improper practices, only to be
rebuffed, disciplined or even fired after speaking up, according to
interviews with current and former staff members and internal documents.
The
growing V.A. scandal over long patient wait times and fake scheduling
books is emboldening hundreds of employees to go to federal watchdogs,
unions, lawmakers and outside whistle-blower groups to report continuing
problems, officials for those various groups said.
In
interviews with The New York Times, a half-dozen current and former
staff members — four doctors, a nurse and an office manager in Delaware,
Pennsylvania and Alaska — said they faced retaliation for reporting
systemic problems. Their accounts, some corroborated by internal
documents, portray a culture of silence and intimidation within the
department and echo experiences detailed by other V.A. personnel in
court filings, government investigations and congressional testimony,
much of it largely unnoticed until now.
Michelle Washington, a psychologist, said her performance was abruptly downgraded.Credit
David Norbut for The New York Times
The
department has a history of retaliating against whistle-blowers, which
Sloan D. Gibson, the acting V.A. secretary, acknowledged this month at a
news conference in San Antonio. “I understand that we’ve got a cultural
issue there, and we’re going to deal with that cultural issue,” said
Mr. Gibson, who replaced Eric K. Shinseki after Mr. Shinseki resigned
over the scandal last month. Punishing whistle-blowers is “absolutely
unacceptable,” Mr. Gibson said.
The federal Office of Special Counsel,
which investigates whistle-blower complaints, is examining 37 claims of
retaliation by V.A. employees in 19 states, and recently persuaded the
V.A. to drop the disciplining of three staff members who had spoken out.
Together with reports to other watchdog agencies and the Times
interviews, the accounts by V.A. whistle-blowers cover several dozen
hospitals, with complaints dating back seven years or longer.
Dr.
Jacqueline Brecht, a former urologist at the Alaska V.A. Healthcare
System in Anchorage, said in an interview that she had a heated argument
with administrators at a staff meeting in 2008 when she objected to
using phantom appointments to make wait times appear shorter, as they
had instructed her. She said that the practice amounted to medical
fraud, and complained about other patient care problems as well.
Days
later, a top administrator came to Dr. Brecht’s clinic, put her on
administrative leave, and had security officers walk her out of the
building.
“It’s
scary to think that people can try to stand up and do the right thing,
and this is the reaction,” said Dr. Brecht, now in private practice in
Massachusetts.
Her
complaints were corroborated by other Alaska personnel and were the
subject of an email that Dr. Brecht sent to a military doctor at the
time. Dr. Brecht wrote that administrators “schedule fake patient
appointments (i.e. commit FRAUD).” They do so, she wrote, “just so our
numbers look good to DC (and the administrators get their bonuses for
these numbers).”
Kathy
Leatherwood, a nurse and unit manager at the Alaska V.A., said in an
interview that she also objected in 2008 to the use of phantom
appointments. She said administrators directed her to schedule fake
appointments for new patients within 30 days without even notifying the
patients. She was then supposed to mark the patient as a “no show” or a
cancellation and schedule a real appointment for later, she said. That
way, the official record would show the veteran was offered a quick
appointment within the required turnaround period.
Ms. Leatherwood said that she, too, went to V.A. administrators to object.
“It’s
my name that’s going to be on that chart,” she remembered telling one
administrator. The administrator responded that if she was unwilling to
carry out the policy, he would find someone who would, she said. When
she continued objecting, he threatened to call security if she did not
leave his office.
Kathleen
Belmonti, who was a nurse there, said in an interview that she, too,
was aware of staff concerns about scheduling and management practices.
Cynthia
A. Joe, the chief of staff at the Alaska V.A. Healthcare System, said
the facility had never used phantom scheduling and that, while some
staff members had raised questions about scheduling practices, no one
had protested or faced disciplining after raising concerns.
In
court filings detailing the V.A. response to other problems, Dr. Ram
Chaturvedi, formerly with the Dallas V.A. Medical Center, said that he
began complaining in 2008 about shoddy patient care, including
negligence by nurses who had marked the wrong kidney while preparing a
patient for a procedure. In another instance, Dr. Chaturvedi said
medical personnel had brought the wrong patient to an operating table.
A
supervisor told Dr. Chaturvedi to “let some things slide” because of
staffing problems, but he continued writing up complaints. Officials
considered him disruptive and fired him in 2010.
At
the V.A. Medical Center in Wilmington, Del., Michelle Washington, a
psychologist treating soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, also
found her worries unwelcome. She said in an interview that she faced
retaliation when she testified in 2011 to a Senate committee about staffing shortages that she said left veterans waiting dangerously long for psychological help.
A
week before her scheduled appearance, Dr. Washington said she received
an evaluation downgrading her performance at the hospital from
“outstanding” to “unsatisfactory,” citing management complaints she had
never heard before. She was also stripped of some psychological
treatment duties.
“I’m
not sure how I went from outstanding to unsatisfactory in 30 days,” Dr.
Washington said. “The only intervening thing was my testimony.”
In
Pittsburgh, two V.A. doctors specializing in Legionnaires’ disease, Dr.
Janet Stout and Dr. Victor Yu, said they were forced out after
complaining about budget and salary matters in 2006. The V.A. then
closed their lab and destroyed their specimens — decisions the doctors
contend contributed to a 2011 outbreak of Legionnaires’ at the
Pittsburgh hospital that killed six people.
“The V.A. isn’t a place where you speak out,” Dr. Stout said in an interview.
Dr.
Yu called the department’s decision to close his lab “malicious,” and
added in an interview that “I fall into a category that the V.A.
absolutely abhors — whistle-blowers.”
The
number of claims of retaliation by V.A. whistle-blowers are among the
highest of any federal agency, said Carolyn Lerner, who runs the Office
of Special Counsel, and have been documented by Congress going back at
least two decades.
In
1992, a congressional report concluded that the V.A. discouraged
employees from reporting problems by “harassing whistle-blowers or
firing them.” In 1999, a House subcommittee hearing on “Whistleblowing and Retaliation in the Department of Veterans Affairs” found little had changed.
Today V.A. employees and whistle-blower lawyers say the problem has only gotten worse.
In Phoenix, Dr. Sam Foote,
whose complaints triggered the current scandal, said hospital officials
ignored him at first and then harassed him when he complained about
administrators who were “cooking the books.” V.A. administrators
“started coming after me,” he told The Arizona Republic. He decided to
retire early last year as a result.
One
way the V.A. has silenced whistle-blowers, their lawyers maintain, is
by threatening to hold them in violation of patient privacy laws if they
discuss medical cases. That happened in a 2007 case in Chicago, where
Dr. Anil Parikh was fired after reporting “systematic problems” that he
said delayed patient care. In terminating him, the V.A. charged that he
had violated confidentiality laws by reporting his concerns to the
inspector general and to Barack Obama, at the time a senator from
Illinois, and other government officials, court filings show. After four
years, a grievance panel reinstated Dr. Parikh with back pay.
Many employees, still fearing retaliation, are going outside the department to report what they say are systemic problems.
The Project on Government Oversight,
a private group working with whistle-blowers, said it had received
confidential complaints from about 175 current and former V.A. employees
since the latest controversy began. Those complaints are of such
interest to the government that the V.A. inspector general subpoenaed
them last month, demanding all reports related to the Phoenix V.A. The
group is resisting because of concerns about whistle-blower
confidentiality.
“People are coming out of the woodwork,” said J. Ward Morrow, a lawyer for the American Federation of Government Employees, which has received recent reports of problems from more than 100 V.A. employees.
Dr.
Brecht, the Alaska urologist who was put on leave in 2008, said she
thought about calling a whistle-blower’s hotline at the time, but feared
that administrators might take further steps to discredit her and risk
her medical licensing.
“When
I saw all this on the news the last few months, part of me felt this
huge sense of relief,” Dr. Brecht said, “because it was like I wasn’t
crazy after all.”
Federal and state food agencies have been mighty lenient with the cattlemen for years now, apparently waiting until enough Americans with mad cow disease had time to develop symptoms. It can take as many as ten or twenty years for the disease to show up.
Just last November the USDA relaxed rules for importing cattle from areas known to harbor the disease. (See second story below.)
Recently, the CDC admitted that a fourth American has died of mad cow disease.
The United States Department of Agriculture announced a recall for over four thousand pounds of beef products that may be contaminated with mad cow disease.
A part of the nervous system that can be detrimental to consumers in
cattle over a certain age is required to be completely removed from the
beef. It is suspected that this regulation was not met precisely.
Fruitland American Meat, a company based in Missouri, informed
consumers that the bone-in ribeye roasts were sold to a New York City restaurant, as well as a Whole Foods distribution center in Connecticut which provides for several of the New England stores, reports the Los Angeles Times.
There have been no reported incidents of any negative reactions to
ingestion of these beef products. The USDA classified the incident as a
low health risk.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service discovered the issue while
reviewing the company’s slaughter logs. The USDA stated that the
possible contamination might have been caused by the employees’ failure
to properly determine the age of cattle.
By
James Andrews
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its
final ruling late Friday afternoon easing regulations on beef imports
in regard to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the fatal disease
in cattle also known as “Mad Cow Disease.”
The new rule will bring the United States’ stance on beef imports in
line with international standards that base trade policies on the
scientifically perceived risk of animals or animal products harboring
the disease, according to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS). While
the agency said the move modernizes the U.S.’s beef import regulations,
some industry and consumer groups have come out against the new rules,
saying they needlessly endanger U.S. consumers and the country’s cattle
population.
Under the new rule, some current restrictions on beef imports will be
lifted based on countries that have a “negligible risk for BSE,” a
status determined by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
Commodities that pose more than a negligible risk may still be
restricted, but not necessarily.
The rules could potentially reopen beef imports to the U.S. from the
European Union, which have been restricted since 1998. The U.S. imports
about 8.1 percent of its beef supply, predominantly in the form of live
cattle from Canada and Mexico. About 10 percent of the U.S. beef supply
is exported, mostly in the form of high quality cuts.
The move to align its BSE standards with international policies may
also open U.S. beef exports to more foreign markets. In May, the OIE
upgraded the status of U.S. BSE risk from “controlled” to “negligible,”
the safest possible classification.
As an example of how the rule would change imports, the USDA said
that boneless beef could be imported from countries that have had cases
of BSE as boneless beef presents a scientifically negligible risk of
transmitting BSE. Most imports have previously been prohibited from any
country that had an indigenous case of BSE.
“These actions will further demonstrate to our trading partners our
commitment to international standards and sound science,” the agency
wrote in a fact sheet, “and we are hopeful it will help open new markets
and remove remaining restrictions on U.S. cattle and cattle products.”
In a statement, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA)
President Scott George said the rule would be integral to expanding
international beef trade and called it “great news for the U.S. cattle
industry.”
Bill Bullard, president of rancher trade group R-CALF, disagreed,
saying that the USDA’s new rule “radically” relaxed import restrictions
for areas where BSE continues to persist.
Bullard pointed out that the European Union reported four new cases
of BSE in 2013, saying that the new rule “opens the door to allow U.S.
meatpackers to begin supplementing tight U.S. beef supplies with beef of
questionable safety from Europe.”
Europe has reportedly detected 83 new cases of BSE since 2010, a
significant reduction from past decades. Since the 1980s, the United
Kingdom has seen more than 180,000 cases.
Bullard said the new rule also underscored the need for
country-of-origin labeling laws, which are opposed by the NCBA and
members of Congress via the 2013 Farm Bill.
The new rule could put both consumers and the U.S. cattle herd at
risk, according to Dr. Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at
Consumers Union.
Hansen cited a recent study that found roughly one in 2,000 people in the U.K. were silent carriers of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of BSE.
At least 177 U.K. citizens – and 49 other people around the world –
have died from vCJD since 1996. One death has occurred in the past two
years in the U.K., the country recognized as having the largest exposure
to BSE, according to the BBC.
Humans can contract vCJD from eating meat contaminated with brain or
spinal tissue from cattle infected with BSE. The agent that transmits
BSE is not destroyed in the cooking process.
Countries around the world have tried to severely control the spread
of BSE since its appearance in the 1980s. The disease began spreading
through the practice of mixing cattle meat and bone meal into the feed
of cattle herds.
BSE causes the brain and spinal cords of cattle to deteriorate. Symptoms typically appear in cattle older than 30 months.
The U.K. has seen more than 180,000 cases of BSE in cattle, by far
the most of any country. By comparison, France and Portugal have each
seen roughly 900, the second most. The U.S. has had four cases.
In the U.S. and other countries regulating BSE, cattle feed can no
longer contain meat of other ruminant animals. USDA runs a surveillance
program for BSE, and slaughterhouses are required to remove the brains
and spinal cords from all carcasses.
USDA will file the new beef import rule in the Federal Register in
the coming days. It takes effect 90 days from the filing date.
A Virginia man is suing after his cell phone captured audio of doctors allegedly mocking him while he was under anesthesia for a colonoscopy.
The plaintiff, D.B., says doctors joked about firing a gun up his rectum and accused him of having STDs during his medical procedure.
"On April 18, 2013, during a colonoscopy, plaintiff was verbally brutalized and defamed by the very doctors to whom he entrusted his life while under anesthesia," the complaint says.
D.B. sued Safe Sedation LLC and Safe Sedation Management in Fairfax County Court for defamation, infliction of emotional distress and illegally disclosing his health records.
The patient said he left his phone on and recorded everything on accident. When he later drove home with his wife, they discovered the recording.
The doctors, Tiffany Ingham and Soloman Shah, are not named as defendants but are accused of mocking D.B. as soon as the anesthetic knocked him out.
"Tiffany Ingham, M.D. started to mock, and then continued to mock, the amount of medicine required to anesthetize plaintiffs," the complaint states. "Referring to plaintiff, Soloman Shah, M.D. commented that a teaching physician known to both him and Tiffany Ingham, M.D. 'would eat him for lunch.'
"Tiffany Ingham, M.D. agreed that plaintiff would be 'eaten alive' and also jokingly discussed a hypothetical of firing a gun up a rectum," it says.
"And really, after five minutes of talking to you in pre-op I wanted to punch you in the face and man you up a little bit," Ingham allegedly said to the patient while he was under.
Doctors allegedly discussed D.B.'s prescription medication and an irritation he had on his penis.
v
"A medical assistant at GMA touched plaintiff's penis during the colonoscopy," the complaint states. "Although plaintiff's penis is not involved in a colonoscopy, the medical assistant noted there was not 'much of a penile rash.' Tiffany Ingham, M.D. responded, 'No, you'll accidentally rub up against it. Some syphilis on your arm or something.' Solomon Shah, M.D. responded, 'That would be bad. That would be real bad.'"
"Tiffany Ingham, M.D. then stated to all present in the operating suite that, 'It's probably tuberculosis in the penis, so you'll be all right.'"
The lawsuit notes that the plaintiff has neither disease.
In a final remark on tape, Ingham allegedly said she would make a note in D.B.'s file that he had hemorrhoids even though he didn't.
He's seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
COMMENTS
No need to anesthetize everyone
By: Publicgood
I did just fine during my colonoscopy with no anesthesia at all. I think doctors who anesthetize all patients are doing it for the same reason that they refuse to allow patients to have a DVD of the procedure: they don't want to listen to patient's questions either during the procedure or later on.
Colonoscopy souvenir DVDs
By: Publicgood
I am shocked that doctors across the US have stopped providing DVDs of colonoscopies in response to medical records requests. It's okay that they don't automatically give souvenir DVDs, but it's not okay to violate the law regarding patient's rights to access to their medical records. Doctors even claim that it's a cost-cutting measure; this is obviously false since digital memory is getting cheaper by the month and has always been cheaper and more compact than the VHS tapes on which colonoscopies used to be saved.
Update June 13, 2014 : If UCSD were telling the truth about not having enough room on its hard disk to save digital colonoscopies, then it would have all the more reason to provide DVDs of the procedure. UCSD wouldn't allow me to pay extra to get my colonoscopy saved.
When I got my colonoscopy yesterday (at somewhere other than UCSD), the doctor showed me the small device for recording DVDs that attaches to the colonoscopy machine. "How much did that cost?" I asked. "Two hundred dollars," he said. "But you can get it for $150 on E-bay." Ahem, UCSD? Do you want to stick to your story that prohibitive cost is the reason you (allegedly) don't save digital colonoscopies?
I was scheduled for a routine colonoscopy at UCSD last month. Nothing controversial about that, right?
I had had a bizarre experience at Kaiser three years ago when I paid Kaiser $10 for a DVD of the digital video of my VUCG (or "VCUG"). Then suddenly the radiology imaging department claimed that there were no digital images of the procedure--even though the X-rays were done at the brand new Garfield Specialty Center advertised as having all-digital X-rays. Kaiser said that it only had a few odd thermal paper images of the June 15, 2011 procedure.
So naturally I wanted to make sure that the same thing wouldn't happen at UCSD. A couple of days before my colonoscopy I called to make sure that I would be able to get a DVD of the procedure.
UCSD's gastroenterology department told me that they don't save any of the digital data generated during colonoscopies.
This is what UCSD claims:
1. The patient can't get a second opinion from any doctor who wasn't watching the computer monitor during the procedure.
2. UCSD is very vulnerable to lawsuits; it can't prove that it wasn't negligent if the patient develops colon cancer that was missed.
3. UCSD can't learn from its mistakes. It can't go back and see what it was they missed so they can do a better job in the future.
4. A few seconds after the patient leaves, the doctor (and patient) are out of luck if the doctor suddenly thinks, "Hey, what was that I was looking at? Maybe that was something important. I'd like to see that again." Nope. No chance. According to UCSD, the images have been flushed from its computers.
5. UCSD says they don't save the images because it takes up too much space on the hard drive.
Yeah, right. Digital memory is getting cheaper by the month, so why would UCSD have suddenly stopped saving digital data recently? They used to give patients DVDs, and before that they gave VHS tapes of colonoscopies. Those tapes were a lot more expensive and bulky than digital memory.
I asked if I could pay extra to get my procedure saved, but they said NO. The procedure costs $1300 minimum. You'd think that would cover a bit of space on the hard drive, wouldn't you? Well, of course it does. They just don't want patients to see the images.
These days many doctors in the US are so dead set against patients seeing the images that they sedate everybody, even people who've had colonoscopies before without sedation and didn't have any problem. They'd rather take the risk of a bad reaction to drugs than to let patients see the video. I watched doctors on You Tube showing the whole process, and the first thing they asked patients when they woke up was, "Do you remember anything?" The patients all said NO.
When I suggested that I didn't believe that UCSD flushed the digital data, UCSD suggested that I go somewhere else if I wanted a DVD.
So I found a doctor who would give me a DVD of my colonoscopy.
The new doctor wants me to get some lab work done, so I went to UCSD today to get blood drawn.
The nurse who drew my blood was very sweet, but it quickly became clear that she had been tasked with finding out who had agreed to give me a DVD of a colonoscopy. Why would UCSD want to know that?
"Where are you going for your colonoscopy?" she asked.
I didn't want UCSD calling up the doctor and demanding that he not give me a DVD.
"I don't think I should say, since UCSD doesn't approve of patients getting DVDs," I told her.
"Oh, no," she said. "It's not that. It's just that we don't do DVDs."
Fine, I thought. So we're all happy and relaxed about this situation. I sat back in my chair and the nurse put a pillow on my lap.
"So are you getting it done at a hospital?" she asked. It seemed that my nurse was not so happy and relaxed about the situation after all.
I didn't want to say YES and I didn't want to say NO. I didn't want to tell the truth or tell a lie. So I didn't say anything.
I was afraid she'd be mad at me and poke me painfully with the needle, but she was very careful. I only felt a tiny pinch. And then we said friendly good byes.
Message to UCSD: she tried. She really did try. But I had planned ahead of time that I wouldn't spill the beans. So don't blame the very sweet girl who couldn't get the information out of me.
...In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year. Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death, the study says.
That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.
The new estimates were developed by John T. James, a toxicologist at NASA’s space center in Houston who runs an advocacy organization called Patient Safety America. James has also written a book about the death of his 19-year-old son after what James maintains was negligent hospital care...
I was scheduled for a routine colonoscopy at UCSD last month. Nothing controversial about that, right?
I had had a bizarre experience at Kaiser three years ago when I paid Kaiser $10 for a DVD of the digital video of my VUCG (or "VCUG"). Then suddenly the radiology imaging department claimed that there were no digital images of the procedure--even though the X-rays were done at the brand new Garfield Specialty Center advertised as having all-digital X-rays. Kaiser said that it only had a few odd thermal paper images of the June 15, 2011 procedure.
So naturally I wanted to make sure that the same thing wouldn't happen at UCSD. A couple of days before my colonoscopy I called to make sure that I would be able to get a DVD of the procedure.
UCSD's gastroenterology department told me that they don't save any of the digital data generated during colonoscopies.
This is what UCSD claims:
1. The patient can't get a second opinion from any doctor who wasn't watching the computer monitor during the procedure.
2. UCSD is very vulnerable to lawsuits; it can't prove that it wasn't negligent if the patient develops colon cancer that was missed.
3. UCSD can't learn from its mistakes. It can't go back and see what it was they missed so they can do a better job in the future.
4. A few seconds after the patient leaves, the doctor (and patient) are out of luck if the doctor suddenly thinks, "Hey, what was that I was looking at? Maybe that was something important. I'd like to see that again." Nope. No chance. According to UCSD, the images have been flushed from its computers.
5. UCSD says they don't save the images because it takes up too much space on the hard drive.
Yeah, right. Digital memory is getting cheaper by the month, so why would UCSD have suddenly stopped saving digital data recently? They used to give patients DVDs, and before that they gave VHS tapes of colonoscopies. Those tapes were a lot more expensive and bulky than digital memory.
I asked if I could pay extra to get my procedure saved, but they said NO. The procedure costs $1300 minimum. You'd think that would cover a bit of space on the hard drive, wouldn't you? Well, of course it does. They just don't want patients to see the images.
These days many doctors in the US are so dead set against patients seeing the images that they sedate everybody, even people who've had colonoscopies before without sedation and didn't have any problem. They'd rather take the risk of a bad reaction to drugs than to let patients see the video. I watched doctors on You Tube showing the whole process, and the first thing they asked patients when they woke up was, "Do you remember anything?" The patients all said NO.
When I suggested that I didn't believe that UCSD flushed the digital data, UCSD suggested that I go somewhere else if I wanted a DVD.
So I found a doctor who would give me a DVD of my colonoscopy...
WASHINGTON
—
A consumer watchdog group on Wednesday questioned the legality of
several advertisements for medical devices that appear on YouTube and
called on regulators to crack down on the promotions.
Online videos from Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic Inc. and Stryker
Corp. tout the benefits of their devices, but do not mention the risks,
according to the Boston-based nonprofit group, Prescription Project.
The Food and Drug Administration requires television advertisements for
drugs and medical devices to give a balanced picture of benefits and
risks; however, it's unclear whether that law also applies to Internet
promotions, the group says.
"The videos raise serious questions about whether drug and device
companies are using the Internet to skirt laws that safeguard
consumers," said Allan Coukell, director of policy for the Prescription
Project.
In a petition submitted to the FDA, the group asks regulators to order
the companies to remove the advertisements from the Web. The group also
asks the agency to issue regulations specifying that online ads are
subject to the same standards as television ads.
Among the ads cited in the petition are an advertisement for Medtronic's artificial spine disk, Prestige.
This week the Senate has a chance to pass bipartisan legislation that
would allow the VA to lease new health care facilities and hire the
doctors and nurses needed to keep up with the new veterans created after
two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A similar bill passed the House, so hopefully this is the final step
before instituting the kind of changes we need to ensure the tragedies
at Phoenix and other VA facilities across the country never happen
again. Sign our joint-petition calling on Mitch McConnell to stop blocking
funding for veterans’ health care, and pass the Sanders-McCain
legislation this week.
Mad
cow disease -- the fourth confirmed case in the U.S. -- is responsible
for the death of a Texas man, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said Friday.
The variant CJD, as it’s medically known, was confirmed by experts after a sample of the man’s brain tissue was analyzed.
No specifics on the victim or when he died were released.
“The
history of this fourth patient, including extensive travel to Europe
and the Middle East, supports the likelihood that infection occurred
outside the United States,” the CDC said in a statement.
The
disease is a rare, degenerative fatal brain disorder in humans that is
believed to be caused by eating the meat of cows with the disease bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, according to the CDC.
The disease in
humans is more prevalent in Europe. The majority are in Britain, which
has had 177 confirmed cases since the disease was discovered there in
1996, and France, with 27, the CDC reports.
