Echoes of the once-familiar drumbeat to "repeal and replace" the health care reform law returned to Capitol Hill this week as GOP lawmakers focused on bringing down one of the law's key pillars. The Independent Payment Advisory Board drew the ire of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle as the panel and its ability to sidestep Congress to implement Medicare cuts became the focus of two congressional committee hearings. Called everything from a "pernicious" ration board to realistic price control, the independent committee will recommend cuts to the ballooning Medicare system that would automatically take effect when Congress fails to implement cost-saving measures of its own. While the Obama administration sees the board as a vital way to bring down prices in the health care industry, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius defended the board Tuesday by downplaying its importance.
Following a spike in reported complications, the Food and Drug Administration released an updated advisory Wednesday about a surgical mesh implanted in women to strengthen vaginal tissue that can become weakened, especially after childbirth. In its report, the FDA says a review of industry literature and the adverse event reports has shown little evidence that the device, which is implanted vaginally or abdominally, improves pelvic organ prolapse, where a woman's uterus, bladder, or rectum can slip out of place. The review found that vaginal implantation exposes patients to a number of serious risks. The FDA called for a September meeting of a panel of outside experts for recommendations on how to proceed.
Hackensack University Medical Center is a step closer with its efforts to reopen the hospital facility in the Pascack Valley on June 6. The New Jersey State Supreme Court denied Englewood Hospital and Medical Center's and Valley Hospital's appeal against HUMC's certificate of need application. In early June, HUMC and LHP Hospital Group submitted the application, along with a petition with just less than 10,000 signatures, after several area officials called for the former Pascack Valley Hospital to reopen. During his campaign, Governor Christie promised to reopen the facility, which has been operating as an emergency facility since its closure for bankruptcy in 2007. "The court's decision constitutes very positive progress toward restoring much needed acute care hospital services for residents of the Pascack Valley and Northern Valley regions," Robert C. Garrett, president/CEO for HUMC said.
A new state law will allow patients to learn more about their doctors' backgrounds and give the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts increased power to discipline incompetent physicians. Gov. Jay Nixon on Wednesday signed House Bill 265, giving the healing arts board more leverage to respond more quickly to doctors deemed a threat to public health. The bill was inspired by the 2010 Post-Dispatch series "Who Protects the Patients," an investigation into the state's lax and secretive system of doctor discipline. The new law takes effect Aug. 28. The healing arts board will then have greater authority to suspend the licenses of incompetent and impaired doctors by making it easier to prove that patients are at risk. Missouri law already allows the board to immediately suspend dangerous doctors, but the Post-Dispatch investigation found it had not done so in at least 25 years.
The Maryland Board of Physicians revoked the medical license of Dr. Mark G. Midei on Wednesday, finding that the Towson cardiologist falsified patient records in order to justify unnecessary and expensive cardiac stent procedures. "Dr. Midei's violations were repeated and serious," board members wrote in an 11-page order. "They unnecessarily exposed his patients to the risk of harm. They increased the cost of the patients' medical care." The findings cap two years of inquiry into Midei's work at St. Joseph Medical Center. The allegations tarnished Midei's career, pushed the hospital to enter into a multimillion-dollar settlement with the federal government and led the U.S. Senate Finance Committee to open an investigation into the doctor's relationship with stent makers.
The most violent job in Washington state isn't being a police officer or a security guard. It's working as a nurse's aide. Seattle public radio station KUOW-FM made that finding as part of an investigative series on workplace safety airing this week. The station found that violence strikes healthcare workers in Washington at six times the state average, and frontline caregivers in emergency rooms and psychiatric wards get assaulted even more than that. The single most violent workplace in the state is at Western State Hospital, where criminal defendants are taken when they are found incompetent to stand trial. Workers at psychiatric hospitals are assaulted on the job more often than anybody else -- 60 times more than the average worker in Washington State.