Waves of flu patients have been arriving at their doors of hospitals across the country, doubling their emergency room volume. And while a relatively small number of flu patients are requiring intensive care, some are so ill they will need round-the-clock care for weeks. As a result, many hospitals are struggling to keep up with the growing number of swine flu patients, USA Today reports.
With fewer medical school students choosing the lower-paying fields of family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics, lawmakers and others say something has to be done to attract them. Helping students repay their loans could help fill a shortage of general physicians that one report estimates could reach 44,000 by 2025, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
In 2010, Dallas County will lead the state of Texas in the percentage of uninsured children, a rate nearly triple the national average, according to a report Children's Medical Center Dallas is releasing. More than half of the 730,000 children in Dallas County have limited access to primary and preventive healthcare, Children's said in its report, "Beyond ABC: Growing Up in Dallas County."
Amid growing concerns over the H1N1 virus, some hospitals in Illinois have begun revising their guidelines on visitors, in some cases prohibiting children. Edward Hospital in Naperville announced that people under 18 will be prohibited from visiting the hospital unless they have a medical issue. The hospital asked others, especially people with upper respiratory problems, to refrain from visiting patients if possible. Edward's decision came two days after President Barack Obama declared swine flu a national emergency and as concerns mount over a limited supply of vaccine. Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago also began restricting children or people with flulike symptoms from visiting patients, and restricted each patient to a maximum of two visitors.
The nation's preeminent seniors group, AARP, says many of the healthcare proposals under consideration will lower costs and increase the quality of care for older Americans. But not advertised in the lobbying campaign have been the group's substantial earnings from insurance royalties and the potential benefits that could come its way from many of the reform proposals, according to the Washington Post. The group's dual role as an insurance reformer and a broker has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks from congressional Republicans, who accuse it of having a conflict of interest in taking sides in the fierce debate over health insurance, the Post reports.
Although emergency kits are designed to help nursing facilities provide medication to their residents during emergency situations, they can actually create more problems for facilities if not used properly.
Facilities must follow certain procedures and requirements to ensure their use of emergency kits is in compliance with federal and state law. Noncompliance could attract the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administrations (DEA), which recently audited numerous long-term care pharmacies and facilities for noncompliance with Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Emergency kits contain a small quantity of medications that can be dispensed when pharmacy services are not available. However, a nurse cannot simply remove a medication from the kit and administer it to a resident.
"In theory, if there is an emergency kit full of medications and a nurse gets an order from a physician to give a resident one of these medications, the nurse should be able to take the medication from the box and give it to the resident," says Carla McSpadden, RPh, CGP, assistant director of professional services at the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. "But it doesn't work that way with controlled substances. When something comes out of that emergency pill box, it is the same as dispensing a drug from the pharmacy and, in order to dispense controlled substance, the pharmacy must have a complete prescription, not a just a chart order."
According to the DEA, a complete prescription for a controlled substance must include the following information:
Date of issue
Resident's name and address
Practitioner's name, address, and DEA registration number
Drug name
Drug strength
Dosage form
Quantity prescribed
Directions for use
Number of refills (if any) authorized
Manual signature of prescriber
"An emergency controlled substance prescription can be telephoned into a pharmacy, but the only person who can communicate the information to the pharmacy is the prescriber for class two drugs, and this must be done before a nurse could remove the drug from the emergency kit," McSpadden says. "The prescriber or prescriber's employee can communicate the information to the pharmacy for class three-five drugs."
SNFs and pharmacies also have to submit documentation when an emergency kit is used. Without a proper prescription or the necessary documentation, use of an emergency kit is considered in violation of the CSA, as is using emergency kits for anything other than emergency situations.
"A big problem we see is that these emergency kits often become mini-pharmacies and are used for regular, routine dispensing of controlled substances," says Mark Caverly, the head of the Liaison and Policy Section for the DEA's Office of Diversion Control. "As long as facilities use these kits only in true emergency situations, pursuant to a physician's proper authorization, the DEA has no problems with them."
Caris Diagnostics, the anatomic pathology and oncology testing services provider, has announced the appointment of Jerry Martino as senior vice president/CFO. Most recently, Martino, a CPA, was the executive vice president/COO for Par Pharmaceutical Companies. Before that, he was with Schering-Plough Corporation for 12 years, most recently as vice president, Global Materials Management and Global Supply Chain Operations.
U.S. companies are planning to hire and invest more in the near future, according to a survey from the National Association for Business Economics. The Association said the number of employers planning to hire workers over the next six months exceeded the number expecting job cuts for the first time since the recession began in December 2007. The survey of 78 NABE members also showed more companies increased capital spending during the third quarter of 2009 than cut spending.
There are more Americans 65 and older in the job market today than at any time in history, 6.6 million, compared with 4.1 million in 2001, the New York Times reports. In addition, nearly half a million workers 65 and older want to work but cannot find a job—more than five times the level early this decade and this group's highest unemployment level since the Great Depression, according to the Times.
Tampa, FL-based Moffitt Cancer Center CEO William S. Dalton, MD, has been appointed vice president/president-elect of the Association of American Cancer Institutes. Dalton will assume the AACI presidency in 2011. AACI comprises 95 of the leading cancer research centers in the United States.
