NYU Langone Medical Center announced today the successful completion of the most extensive face transplant to date, setting new standards of care in this emerging field. Equally important, for the first time a face transplant has been performed on a first responder – a volunteer firefighter who suffered a full face and scalp burn in the line of duty.
Approximately 12 million people in the United States experience diagnostic errors annually, but it is time for a change, according to researchers at RTI International, the Baylor College of Medicine and Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Principal Investigator Takes Questions and Demonstrates Procedure with Video and Animation via Virtual Press Conference Tuesday, November 10th at 1:00 p.m. ET
The Spiritual Care Department at MedStar Washington Hospital Center has launched the Not Alone Transition Companion program, to provide critically ill or dying patients with a companion when family members or friends are not available.
Delirium may begin as a serious complication for up to 90 percent of patients who are critically ill, but its psychological effects often linger after they regain awareness, according to interviews with those who lived through the experience. A study in the American Journal of Critical Care identifies overarching themes based on participants’ personal perspectives about their experience with delirium.
For the eighth consecutive time, Rush University Medical Center has received an “A” for patient safety in a nationwide evaluation of hospitals by the Leapfrog Group. Rush has received an A, the top grade possible, each time the Leapfrog Group has rated hospitals since launching the organization’s Hospital Safety Score in June 2012.
Patients who stop taking cholesterol medications before surgery are following outdated recommendations, and significantly increasing their risk of death if they don’t resume taking the medications within two days after surgery, according to a study of more than 300,000 patients being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2015 annual meeting.
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), a class of drugs used to treat acid reflux and other acid-related gastrointestinal conditions, may increase the risk for developing chronic kidney disease (CKD). Two new studies that reached similar conclusions on the increased CKD risk associated with PPI use will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2015 November 3–8 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, CA.
A few minutes of counseling in a primary care setting could help steer people away from risky drug use, and possibly full-fledged addiction. In a clinical trial called Project QUIT, researchers found that this sort of intervention helped patients reduce their risky drug use by one-third.
Drug-resistant E. coli infections are on the rise in community hospitals, where more than half of U.S. patients receive their health care, according to a new study from Duke Medicine.
New research from Penn Medicine infection control specialists found that ultraviolet (UV) robots helped reduce the rates transmission of the common bacterial infection known as Clostridium difficile among cancer inpatients – mostly blood cancer patients, a group more vulnerable to hospital-acquired infections – by 25 percent. The interventions also saved about $150,000 in annual direct medical costs.
An electronic system that monitors how physicians give blood to patients after an operation has enabled a 22-hospital system with thousands of doctors to significantly reduce the amount of blood transfusions patients receive, cutting costs by $2.5 million over two years.
In a hospital, what you can’t see could hurt you. Healthcare facilities continue to battle drug-resistant organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that loiter on surfaces even after patient rooms have been cleaned and can cause new, sometimes-deadly infections. But a new study from Duke Medicine has found that using a combination of chemicals and UV light to clean patient rooms cut transmission of four major superbugs by a cumulative 30 percent among a specific group of patients -- those who stay overnight in a room where someone with a known positive culture or infection of a drug-resistant organism had previously been treated.
A Johns Hopkins surgeon and prominent patient safety researcher is calling on hospitals to reform emergency room, surgical and other medical protocols that sicken up to half of already seriously ill patients — in some cases severely — with preventable and potentially dangerous bouts of food and sleep deprivation.
• In contrast to studies in the general population, tallness was associated with higher premature mortality risk and shorter life spans in patients on dialysis. • The association was observed in white, Asian, and American Indian/Alaskan native patients, but not in black patients. • The overall paradoxical relationship between height and premature death was not explained by concurrent illness, socioeconomic status, or differences in care.
Almost half of patients with advanced lung cancer receive more than the recommended number of radiation treatments to reduce their pain, according to a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
A University of Adelaide led study has found that a psychiatric drug claimed to be a safe and effective treatment for depression in adolescents is actually ineffective and associated with serious side effects.
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has added four Xenex Germ-Zapping Robots to its team. Each uses UV-C light to disinfect rooms and destroy pathogens, including Clostridium difficile, norovirus and MRSA.
More than a billion times a year, American hospital patients get tiny tubes inserted into their veins to deliver medicine and more. But these devices carry risks as well as benefits. A new research-based guide shows which kind of device gives each patient the best and safest result.
Hospitalized patients deemed at risk for falls may not follow prevention strategies depending on their perceptions of personal risk, according to a study in the American Journal of Critical Care. An inpatient survey about fall-related attitudes included the patients’ ratings of their confidence to act without falling and their degree of concern about falling.
The amount of time a trauma patient stays in the emergency department (ED) makes no real difference in the patient's mortality, researchers at Saint Louis University found in a recent study.
Engineers and physicians at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have developed a hand-held, battery-powered device that quickly picks up vital signs from a patient’s lips and fingertip.
A recently-published study found that while internal bleeding may be uncommon as a result of taking blood thinners such as Xarelto® (rivaroxaban) and Eliquis® (apixaban), the normal coagulation tests physicians use to check for the side effect of bleeding may not be reliable.
Patients with scoliosis who undergo surgery may be less likely to develop an infection or other complications after the procedure when a novel wound closure technique pioneered at NYU Langone Medical Center is utilized, according to new study
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A group of epidemiologists and infection prevention specialists led by Daniel Morgan, MD, MS, an associate professor of Epidemiology & Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, reviewed current practice and existing literature on the use of contact precautions for MRSA and VRE to build a framework for decision-making based on all available evidence.
Monitors. Alarms. Pagers. People. Hospital noise can keep patients from getting a good night's sleep. Sound panels tested in the hallways of the University of Michigan Health System helped reduce noise around patient rooms.
Eye injections of the drug Avastin, used to treat retinal diseases, bring no greater risk of endophthalmitis, a potentially blinding eye infection, than injections with the much more expensive drug Lucentis made by the same company, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their findings are published today in JAMA Ophthalmology.
Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) are homing in on the potential benefits of allowing patients access to the notes their clinicians write after a visit. An article published in the August edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety suggests that this kind of patient engagement has the power to improve safety and quality of care.
While a new Penn Medicine study in this week’s Annals of Internal Medicine points to several promising cleaning tactics of “high-touch surfaces,” there’s a lack of evidence as to which is the most effective at reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
A new computer-based method correctly predicts septic shock in 85 percent of cases, without increasing the false positive rate from screening methods that are common now.
Communication among health care facilities, public health agencies is critical in effort to avoid HAIs, CDC-led study finds
Increasingly, medical colleagues and funders endorse or even insist on nurses’ place at the decision maker’s table.
Mayo Clinic is announcing results of a study on the effectiveness of left-ventricular assist devices (LVAD) in treating patients with a form of cardiomyopathy called restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM).
• Among patients scheduled to have dialysis during the landfall of Hurricane Sandy at clinics where electricity had been deprived, 26.3% missed dialysis sessions and 66.1% received dialysis at non-regular dialysis units. • The percentage of patients who carried their insurance information and detailed medication lists with them were 75.9% and 44.3%, respectively.
A Johns Hopkins-led study of outcomes among 1,200 people with implanted defibrillators — devices intended to prevent sudden cardiac death from abnormal heart rhythms — shows that within a few years of implantation, one in four experienced improvements in heart function substantial enough to put them over the clinical threshold that qualified them to get a defibrillator in the first place. A report on the study, published in the Aug. 4 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, reveals these patients had markedly lower risk of dying and were far less likely to suffer arrhythmia-terminating device shocks, suggesting their hearts had grown less prone to developing lethal rhythms.
Battlefield surgeons and civilian physicians could have a powerful new tool to help patients recover from traumatic injuries, including life-threatening wounds from explosions.
Patient satisfaction ratings after surgery for spinal degenerative disease—especially in terms of reduced pain and disability—are a good indicator of the procedure's effectiveness, reports a study in the August issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
After decades of overtreatment for low-risk prostate cancer and inadequate management of its more aggressive forms, patients are now more likely to receive medical care matched to level of risk, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco.
Athletes who’ve had lower extremity surgeries before going on to play in college, might be at a higher risk for another surgery independent of gender and sport, say researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.
While preparing for a colonoscopy, a patient hit “record” on his smartphone to make sure he heard the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure. When he played back the recording he was shocked to find that while he lay unconscious, the surgical team had mocked him, told an assistant to lie to him, and then put a false diagnosis on his chart. This incident raises important questions about the authenticity and professionalism of medical professionals.
An athlete’s use of silicone ankle sleeves (SAS) and lace-up ankle braces (LAB) during sports participation can improve neuromuscular control, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.
University of Virginia Medical Center has earned two 2015 national Women’s Choice Awards® from WomenCertified Inc. – one for patient safety and one for patient satisfaction in orthopedics.
Two academics from the University of Warwick say more research is needed to understand why patients are more likely to die in hospital at the weekend.
ASHP and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) released a National Alert for Serious Medication Errors, recommending the replacement of dosage cups that measure liquid medications in fluid drams with cups that measure only in metric (mL).
BOSTON – Hospitals have made significant strides to reduce or eliminate physical harm to patients since the landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine Report “To Err is Human.” In a new paper published in BMJ, patient care leaders at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) say hospitals must now devote similar attention to eliminating emotional harms that damage a patient’s dignity and can be caused by a failure to demonstrate adequate respect for the patient as a person.
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