In a 20-page original petition filed Oct. 4 in the Houston Division of the Southern District of Texas, Dr. Walter Zawislak alleges Memorial Hermann placed him on a National Practitioners Data Bank adverse action report in response to his attempts to address violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act at Houston's Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital. The emergency medicine physician explains that there were instances when certain patients at Memorial Hermann's southeast Houston facilities required the services of a physician whom the hospital system named to its on-call list, however, "the on-call physician failed or refused to appear within a reasonable period of time" after he notified them, stating the respondent "did not take action."
Numerous doctors and other licensed medical staff working for the Oklahoma Corrections Department have less-than-spotless pasts, public records show. Many former prison medical staff had checkered histories, as well. The group includes doctors with long struggles with substance abuse, a physician assistant disciplined for writing fictitious prescriptions and a former high-ranking official who left the state after allegations of sexual harassment were made by three female employees. Such medical professionals, those with checkered pasts, commonly work for state agencies such as the state Corrections Department, said Lyle Kelsey, executive director of the Oklahoma Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision.
Doctors in Jackson Memorial's emergency room say their work is hindered by a hugely dysfunctional system that has trouble processing blood samples, getting basic diagnostic imaging and finding hospital beds for patients. Public documents requested by The Miami Herald revealed that the doctors had plenty of complaints when a manager asked them what they would like to see changed in the ER. The issue is crucial because Jackson Health System executives now are studying bids from nine outside companies about taking over doctors' services in the emergency rooms—a step that has already brought vehement objections from a half-dozen county commissioners and protests from leaders of women's groups who fear the move will hurt the rape treatment center at the hospital.
The proliferation of gadgets, apps and Web-based information has given clinicians—especially young ones like Dr. Rajkomar, who is 28—a black bag of new tools: new ways to diagnose symptoms and treat patients, to obtain and share information, to think about what it means to be both a doctor and a patient. And it has created something of a generational divide. Older doctors admire, even envy, their young colleagues' ease with new technology. But they worry that the human connections that lie at the core of medical practice are at risk of being lost. "Just adding an app won't necessarily make people better doctors or more caring clinicians," said Dr. Paul C. Tang, chief innovation and technology officer at Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Palo Alto, Calif.
With drug shortages and a bloated national health bill, what if expired medications were still effective? What if instead of throwing out the drugs, patients and pharmacists could keep them on the shelves for several more years? Lee Cantrell, director of the California Poison Control System, San Diego Division, and a professor of clinical pharmacy at University of California, San Francisco and his colleagues went about testing the content of old boxes of medicine, which had expired 28 to 40 years earlier. Out of the 14 compounds they analyzed, 12 still fulfilled government requirements for potency, according to the team's report, released Monday. The boxed drugs included the narcotic painkillers hydrocodone and codeine as well as the sedative pentobarbital and butalbital.
Calling the state's health care costs artificially high, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper says he will examine whether to use antitrust laws or new legislation to reduce them. "I'm concerned about this issue," Cooper told the Observer. "Health care costs are high enough without artificial boosts that could come from lack of competition." Cooper's announcement comes in the wake of antitrust investigations into hospitals in other states. It also follows an Observer story showing large nonprofit hospitals are dramatically inflating prices on chemotherapy drugs at a time when they are cornering more of the market on cancer care. In a joint investigation published last month, the Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh found hospitals are routinely marking up prices on cancer drugs two to 10 times over cost.