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Patients And Health Care Providers Seek Improved Quality As Report Shows Extensive Errors
The Washington Post reports on efforts by hospitals to tally their avoidable mistakes and describes "hundreds of incidents of death or serious medical harm disclosed in the past year by hospitals in the Washington region, preventable errors that until recently have not required public reporting. Under laws that took effect last year in Virginia and a few years earlier in the District and Maryland, hospitals must report to health regulators many serious injuries that patients suffer in the course of treatment. The laws are different in each jurisdiction. For example, Virginia"s public records identify the hospitals by name, while Maryland"s and the District"s do not. But they all allow the public to glimpse the breadth of mistakes that health experts dub "never events" (because they should never happen): sponges left inside patients after surgery, operations on the wrong limb, medication errors, falls that lead to needless deaths (as well as other events). At least 20 states require hospitals to report every incidence of hospital-acquired infection. Patients, insurers and regulators are beginning to use this information to prod health-care providers to ensure that such events really never happen."
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Oxoid Makes Screening For Antibiotic-Resistant Organisms Faster, Allowing For Swifter Infection Control And Patient Treatment
Oxoid, a world leading microbiology brand, has today announced the availability of two new chromogenic media in the Brilliance™ Resistant Screening Agar range. Brilliance ESBL Agar and Brilliance VRE Agar can be used as screening tests to rapidly identify patients colonised with problematic Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase (ESBL) producing organisms and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE), allowing appropriate infection control and treatment to commence sooner for the best possible patient outcome.
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Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Announces Final Lomitapide (AEGR-733) Phase II Data
Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic disease, announced final data from three separate Phase II trials involving its lead cholesterol management compound, lomitapide (AEGR-733), which is a microsomal triglyceride transfer protein inhibitor (MTP-I) small molecule drug. The final data was recently presented at the American Diabetes Association"s "69th Scientific Sessions" in New Orleans, LA on June 7, 2009 and the International Symposium on Atherosclerosis (ISA) in Boston, MA on June 15, 2009.
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Diabetes: Electronic Tracking System Can Help Patient Care

An electronic system with personalized patient information shared by diabetes patients and their primary care providers improved diabetes care and clinical outcomes, found a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) . The study involved 511 patients and 46 family physicians and nurse-practitioners and offered web-based tools integrated with 5 different types of electronic health records, an automated telephone reminder system and a mailing of colour-coded materials to half the study sample. Sixty two per cent of patients improved with the intervention compared with 42.6% in the control group and intervention patients reported greater satisfaction with their diabetes care. Diabetes affects approximately 7% of the populations of Canada and the US - about 23 million people - and costs $105 billion in direct annual healthcare costs. Most diabetes care is community-based, largely managed by primary care physicians. The study is one of the first randomized trials to show success in community-based primary care and the first such trial in Canada. "Despite the technical challenges for both patients and physicians, we have demonstrated that the care of a complex chronic disease can be improved with electronic tracking and decision support shared by family physician and patient," write Dr. Anne Marie Holbrook of McMaster University and coauthors. The results of the study "provide strong evidence that complex research interventions can and should be implemented in community-based practices," say Dr. Richard Grant and Dr. Blackford Middleton of Harvard Medical School in a related commentary. The next steps are to create patient-centred rather than disease-focused systems to address a wide range of patient concerns and help clinical management of complex diseases outside of a visit to a doctor or nurse. Kim Barnhardt Canadian Medical Association Journal


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