The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a webpage which gives excellent summary information on government powers to enforce isolation and quarantine.
First, the definitions.
Isolation separates sick people with contagious disease from people who are not sick. Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people exposed to contagious disease to determine if they become sick.
It’s common knowledge that the US healthcare system is the priciest in the world. Some healthcare systems are testing new financial models to see if they can squeeze more efficiencies beyond the status quo. Warranties.
Thomas Duncan returned from Liberia and presented to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with fever and abdominal pain. He was released with symptomatic treatment and returned 3 days later. Sadly, he died of Ebola.
The family of the first Ebola victim in the U.S. will “probably” take legal action against the Dallas hospital, where he died this week, a spokesman for his fiancee stated.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Medicare fined 2,610 hospitals, a record, for too many re-admissions.
Interestingly, the national rate for readmissions is getting lower. Still, last year, 18% of Medicare patients were re-admitted within a month. Medicare believes these re-admissions costs them $26 billion; and that $17 billion comes from potentially avoidable readmissions.
In a typical medical malpractice case, the patient is the plaintiff, seeking a remedy for the injury caused by the doctor’s negligence.
There’s a second type of claim – loss of consortium. Many laypeople narrowly interpret “loss of consortium” as an injury experienced by the patient’s spouse in not being able to enagage in and enjoy sexual relations. But, “loss of consortium” is much broader. It applies to deprivation of benefits of a family relationship.
A couple of weeks ago, my car’s battery died. It was dead-dead. Was never going to take a charge.
AAA has a service where they will put in a new battery – instead of just giving you a jump. While the price seemed high- $128- it did not seem unreasonable. I’d be done. I wouldn’t have to turn this into a two step procedure, step 1: jump; step 2: get a new battery at a lower price elsewhere.
The next morning, the driver contracted by AAA called me. He made an error. Instead of charging my credit card $128, he accidentally charged $12,800. (That immediately made me feel inadequate about the tip I gave.) The driver said he was calling to let me know his company issued a credit. Whew.
Mark Twain, (and possibly Benjamin Disraeli in England) famously stated “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
I just finished a 9 week MOOC – massive open online course in Medical Statistics offered by Stanford Medical School. The course was free and I highly recommend similar free online classes to all medical professionals. I must confess, though, I did not do the homework or take the final exam.
Finishing the course reminded me that statistics can be manipulated by the press, skilled lawyers, and others – often without malicious intent- to achieve a particular purpose. If an expert is delivering drivel against you on the witness stand, and he is waxing philosophic about statistics, the more you know about statistics, the better you’ll be able to defend against its misuse. While we could spend all day on the topic, let’s stick to basics.
Guest post by Dr. Michael Rosenblatt. Dr. Rosenblatt is a retired podiatrist on the west coast.
Those older physicians reading this certainly know the World has changed, perhaps some of it for the better. If you served your residency years ago you will remember “disruptive” attendings. Sometimes our own student egos were publicly trashed with snide, cruel comments. You remember these people angrily react with RN and hospital employee staff. An incorrect instrument pass ended in the instrument flying through the air and smashing against the OR wall.
Times have changed for “disruptive” doctors. They more typically face the brunt of angry and anonymous complaints from nursing and hospital staff. These can lead to peer-review and even board actions against you. I think it’s labeled “toxic work environment.” Professional peer review is an onslaught you must avoid. There are no published rules for professional peer review. There are no safeguards for doctors on the wrong side. The only protections are for those who sit on the board.
While a patient was under anesthesia, an anesthesiologist allegedly decorated a patient’s face with a fake mustache and fake teardrop under her eye. Then a nurse’s aide snapped a photo. Pretty funny, eh?
Well, the patient was a hospital employee who worked there for 13 years prior to having her face decorated against her will.
