Significantly more Idaho women have a midwife-assisted birth or home birth than the national average. About 3.2 percent of the 92,000 total births between 2008 and 2011 were midwife-assisted, either at birthing centers or home birth. The Baby Place in Meridian remains open, but its midwife owner, Coleen Goodwin, and her daughter, Jerusha Goodwin, are barred for now from practicing, in part over decisions allegedly influenced by their distrust and frayed relationships with doctors in hospitals. A former employee of The Baby Place told The Associated Press this antagonism caused them to make decisions against the best interests of mothers and babies—with tragic consequences.
Medical devices sustain and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. But as the over $100 billion-a-year industry pushes thousands of devices to market every year, reports of faulty devices, repeat surgeries, and recalls have increased. The FDA and the industry maintain that a speedy approval process gives patients faster access to life-saving devices. But critics say that unlike drugs, a substantial number of risky devices are cleared without clinical testing, and receive almost no oversight once on the market. We've taken a closer look at four types of implantable medical devices that have drawn the most criticism.
Federal data show that roughly 185,000 nursing home residents in the United States received antipsychotics in 2010 contrary to federal nursing home regulators' recommendations—often elderly people like Murphy who have Alzheimer's or other dementias. This practice is alarmingly common in Massachusetts and across the nation, a Globe investigation has found. The drugs, which are intended to treat severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, can leave people in a stupor. The US Food and Drug Administration has issued black-box warnings about potentially fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by patients with dementia.
Kelly Robinson walked into the Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital emergency room around 1 a.m. in 2008, seeking treatment for a sore throat. The Grand Rapids woman's sore throat progressed into a serious infection and eventually, flesh-eating bacteria that spread to the tissue in her neck. After suing the hospital and a physician's assistant there, a jury this week awarded Robinson $755,000. Her attorney, Kevin Lesperance, said the verdict was not just about Robinson, but about patient safety in general. A Spectrum Health spokeswoman on Wednesday said the hospital plans to appeal the court’s decision.
Corning Inc. is developing a glass that kills drug-resistant bacteria and viruses, and the company believes the innovation has applications in hospitals and beyond. Corning Inc. CEO Wendell Weeks revealed the project Thursday during the company's annual shareholders meeting at the Corning Museum of Glass. Although it is still in development, the so-called anti-microbial glass has shown it can kill 99 percent of viruses and bacteria it contacts, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, Weeks said. Weeks said the project is a response to the hundreds of thousands of people annually who acquire serious infections while being treated at U.S. hospitals.
Clinicians at Children's Hospital in Boston developed a program called Community Asthma Initiative (CAI) in 2005. Using hospitalization and emergency department logs, 283 low-income children with asthma were identified and then enrolled. A key part of the program is a visit to the child's home by a nurse or other health care worker to make the home less likely to trigger asthma attacks. On average, each family received 1.2 home visits during the year-long program. In the year after enrolling in the program, there was a 68 percent decrease in ER visits for asthma and an 85 percent decrease in hospitalizations due to asthma.