Exeter Hospital has hired the services of a high-profile attorney from Boston to help identify anyone else who is potentially liable for David Kwiatkowski allegedly infecting patients with hepatitis C not only in Exeter, but in the other states where the traveling technician worked. William Dailey Jr., senior partner at Sloane and Walsh in Boston, is conducting the investigation for the hospital.
As an emergency room physician, an Army veteran who was deployed to a combat support hospital in Baghdad in 2005, and a biomedical researcher in the field of cardiac-arrest resuscitation, I have been and am, on a daily basis, a witness to grave misfortune. Ordinarily, though, except for medical purposes, I will not discuss what I have seen. Last week a colleague asked me to make an exception. They reminded me that we doctors are at the front lines of the scourge of gun violence, and that to remain silent as this threat to public health continues unabated would be no different than for an oncologist or a cardiologist to stay mum on the dangers of smoking. The doctor's balance between discretion and education is complex. But the news from Newtown, and my colleague's request, convinced me that we have reached the threshold. I can no longer stay silent.
Florida Heart Group has been bought by Florida Hospital Medical Group effective Jan. 1 2013. Details of the deal weren't immediately available, and both parties didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Todd Persons, president of Todd Persons Communications Inc., said he received a letter from his Florida Heart Group cardiologist over the weekend letting him know of the deal.
A national drug shortage has been linked to a higher rate of relapse among children, teenagers and young adults with Hodgkin lymphoma enrolled in a national clinical trial, according to research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
A laptop containing the personal information of approximately 8,500 South Jersey Healthcare patients and others at two out-of-state facilities has been reported stolen, hospital officials said Wednesday. The laptop also contained information about patients from healthcare facilities in Michigan and Virginia. The incident affected only certain patients treated at South Jersey Healthcare, 99 percent of whom were either treated or scheduled for admission at the health system's hospitals between June 1, 2012 and Nov. 12, 2012.
Florida Hospital is working with a Brevard County company to offer health insurance starting next year. "The real driver of this partnership is the acknowledgement that in the future we have to be more than sick care," said Daryl Tol, CEO of the Volusia/Flagler division of Florida Hospital. "We have to be able to provide a cradle-to-grave option for our community that allows them to have access to wellness and prevention." Florida Hospital's five medical centers in Volusia and Flagler counties are collaborating with Rockledge-based Health First Health Plans to create the plan's infrastructure, which is in the initial planning stages and is expected to launch in January 2014.