The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether artificial hip and knee maker Stryker Corp. illegally paid surgeons to induce them to use company products, according to a court filing. The Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department's Office of Inspector General is probing the nature of $40 million in payments that Stryker made last year to almost 200 physicians through consulting agreements and other financial relationships.
In his commentary published in the Wall Street Journal, Benjamin Brewer, MD, says the biggest challenge in primary-care medicine is dealing with the complications of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. "The current financial disincentives to providing proper care for chronic disease are daunting, and the waste created by ignoring the problem is growing as the population ages," Brewer says.
A potent substance used in spine-repair surgery to promote bone growth has been linked to life-threatening complications in dozens of patients. Many of the complications involving the product, Medtronic Inc.'s "Infuse Bone Graft," have occurred during off label uses. Medtronic representatives said it is taking the reports seriously and has been active in warning doctors of certain problems related to use of the bone graft. They added, however, that the rate of complications is low and that reports to the FDA of problems represent one-tenth of 1% of the units sold.
The operating room staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston failed to conduct a crucial verbal safety check prior to a June surgery in which doctors operated on the wrong part of a patient's body, according to a state investigation. The investigation also states that "the simple system of marking the location of an incision failed."
A new study has found that the usefulness of tools meant to promote transparency in healthcare are now being questioned. Research by the Center for Studying Health System Change cited various health plans that are now developing ways to help consumers compare the costs and quality of healthcare as being limited in its usefulness. Often, information is found to be lacking.
People die in Sacramento County emergency rooms at higher rates than in almost any other county in California, with county ERs losing 27 out of every 10,000 patients during the last three years. The statewide average is 17, and Sacramento County has a higher death rate than any California county except tiny Inyo County, according to an analysis of data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. The analysis also shows that inland counties tend to lose more emergency patients than coastal counties, with higher death rates clustering in pockets of the Central Valley and interior Southern California.