Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, has won FDA clearance to sell an in-home health monitoring system for patients with chronic conditions. The Health Guide system combines an in-home patient device as well as online access that enables healthcare professionals to monitor patients and remotely manage care. The system also incorporates interactive tools for personalized care management and integrates vital sign collection, patient reminders, multimedia educational content and feedback, and electronic communications tools.
A Corpus Christi, TX, hospital said that a mixing error that led to a blood thinner overdose in as many as 17 infants was caused by its pharmacy. Two of the babies have died. The error was unrelated to product labeling or packaging of pediatric heparin, according to a statement by the chief medical officer of Christus Spohn Health System. The mixing error is believed to have occurred July 3, and that heparin batch was first administered in the neonatal intensive care unit July 4.
Beaumont Hospitals has received final approval from the Michigan Department of Community Health to develop the state's first proton cancer therapy center. The $159-million facility will be built on the health system's Royal Oak campus, with operations beginning in 2010. The two-story, 40,000-square-foot facility requires a building nearly as large as a football field to house a nuclear cyclotron that makes the proton particles used in the treatment.
It will be a partnership with Bloomington, IN-based ProCure Treatment Centers Inc., and other hospitals and investors may share equity partnerships in the arrangement.
Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy returned to the Capitol to help the Senate pass legislation that would rescind a 10.6% cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The White House has threatened to veto the measure because of provisions that would reduce payments to private insurers who participate in Medicare Advantage. Some doctors have stopped taking new Medicare patients until the issue is resolved, saying the reductions would make treating the elderly impossible from a financial standpoint.
Gifts that drug makers have long showered on doctors will be banned from pharmaceutical marketing campaigns under new voluntary guidelines titled the "Code on Interactions with Health Care Professionals." The guidelines will ask the chief executives of large drug makers to certify in writing that "they have policies and procedures in place to foster compliance with the code." The code, however, provides no definite limits on the millions of dollars spent on speaking and consulting arrangements that drug makers have forged with doctors. The code was written by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Bullying doctors can make nurses afraid to question their performance and result in medical errors, according to a safety alert issued by The Joint Commission. Outbursts and condescending language also threaten patient safety and increase the cost of care, according to the alert. Hospitals will be required by 2009 to have codes of conduct and processes for dealing with inappropriate behavior by staff, and hospitals without such systems risk losing their accreditation, said Joint Commission representatives.