A health writer for Yahoo recently put together a list of the top 8 mistakes hospitals commonly make in treating patients. The list ranged from unhealthy hospital food to breaching the confidentiality of medical records, but some types of hospital negligence can be dangerous or deadly. Here are some things to watch out for: Excessive wait times at the...
Read MoreA study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that some 40 percent of people who experience delirium in hospital intensive-care units may still be affected by cognitive problems similar to those from traumatic brain injuries three months later. Another 26 percent may still be experiencing issues similar to those of mild Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers...
Read MoreIn a case that could easily be from a TV show, a New York hospital has just been fined for a series of outrageous medical errors which resulted in a living woman being labeled dead and sent into surgery to have her organs harvested for donation. The state’s health department found the errors so prevalent that it has found...
Read MoreIf you have an infant or a young child, sickness can be so common it’s frustrating. But what if the doctor you rely on to diagnose and treat those childhood sicknesses makes a serious mistake? Failure to diagnose illness correctly is far too common, so it’s good to have some basic information of your own so you can ask...
Read MoreThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have just announced that the recipient of an organ donation recently died of a rabies infection in the donor. The deceased was one of four people who received organs from the same donor, and the other three are now receiving rabies treatment. Unfortunately,...
Read MoreWorking with scientists on a national project about healthcare and poverty, cardiology researchers at Kansas City’s St. Luke’s Hospital have been poring over the records of heart patients nationwide to determine if there are observable differences between the treatment of uninsured versus insured patients. Unfortunately, the findings indicate that uninsured patients are much more likely to suffer from medical...
Read MoreThe Centers for Disease Control have a tracking system for hospital-acquired infections through its National Healthcare Safety Network, which gathers annual patient infection information from hospitals throughout the United States. Using the historical data to establish trends, the network then predicts a baseline for the number of hospital infections that might be expected in the future. The CDC recently...
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