Amid growing problems with artificial hips and other medical implants, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday that would force manufacturers to track the performance of such products after they were approved for sale. The bill would allow the Food and Drug Administration to compel companies to track implants, such as replacement hips, that belong to a category of products that do not require human testing for approval.
After Dr. Mark Midei was accused of implanting unnecessary heart stents in hundreds of patients at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, a Maryland Health Care Commission committee began developing safeguards to prevent a repeat situation. But now, one of the committee's members — Dr. John Chung-Yee Wang, a former colleague of Midei's who heads the cardiac catheterization lab at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore — is himself accused of improper stenting in three separate legal claims.
Repeat customers to hospitals are seen as a big problem. But it's complicated. Sometimes the hospitals themselves may profit from some patients' frequent visits. But it costs a lot money for the people who pay hospitals: Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. As with many other problems in the healthcare system, unnecessary hospital readmissions are associated with worse treatment and health outcomes as well as higher costs to taxpayers ? as much as $17 billion a year by one estimate.
The federal government has agreed to pay $275,000 to settle a lawsuit from a man who had two towels left inside of him after surgeons at the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center in Cleveland removed a cancerous kidney. Robert Sanner, 47, of New Philadelphia, felt pain and discomfort in the days after his surgery in May 2008 that left him free of cancer. It took three return visits to the hospital before he underwent a CAT scan in August 2008 that showed the towels, measuring 14-by-11 inches, had been left in his body.
While doctors are schooled in traditional Western medicine, a growing number are turning to complementary and alternative medicine to stay healthy, then integrating the techniques into their medical practices. Alternative therapy also includes medical hypnosis, acupuncture, herb therapy, deep breathing, massage and yoga. Complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM, combines the methods with traditional medicine. A study published in the online version of Health Services Research in August found that 76% of healthcare workers and 83% of doctors and nurses used CAM, compared with 63% of the general population.
You've probably heard that we spend a lot of money on patients who die. It's true: about one-tenth of the money spent on direct care goes to people who die each year. Among Medicare patients, the figure is much higher, about one-quarter. You may be shocked by those statistics. What health care system would squander so many dollars on patients who don't benefit? Or maybe you're saddened. No humane system would subject patients to painful interventions and procedures that serve no purpose. The idea that we waste money on terminal patients has caught on; the simplicity of the conceit makes it appealing to policy makers.