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Multi-drug resistant organisms are invading our hospitals. To counter this threat medical in-patient medical facilities use contact precautions such as isolation of the patient, gowning, gloving and masking are used to prevent patient-to-patient spread of drug resistant infections such as MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. However such precautions have their own […]

WUNC aired a story about a pilot project in western North Carolina that seeks to reduce medical errors through anonymous reporting when a medical provider makes a mistake. This keeps the focus where it should be: patient safety. With all the talk about tort reform in the recent health care […]

GlaxoSmithKline, a behemoth drug manufacturer, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company knowingly sold contaminated drugs, including contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant. The settlement is the result of a whistleblower suit filed by a former quality control manager with the […]

Ken Feinberg, the attorney who has served as mass claims administrator for claims from both the September 11th terrorist attacks and now the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, defended the U.S. legal system. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the chief lobbyists for multinational corporations, […]

Dr. Martin Makary, M.D., a professor of surgery and public health at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore reported, stated in a CNN article that catatrosphic surgical errors are more common that the pubic thinks. The problem is commonly referred to as wrong patient wrong site surgery. The findings arise from […]

In an announcement covered by the Associated Press, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) yesterday caved in to industry and declined to set mandatory limits on cadmium. Cadmium is a toxic metal that was the focus of a recall of 12 million ‘Shrek’ glasses at McDonald’s earlier this year, […]

In USA TODAY, it was announced that the Army has developed a reliable new test to detect the presence of traumatic brain injury, an immense help to its troops who receive concussive injuries from bomb blasts and blount force injuries to the head. The test has significant applications in the […]

Reporting medical errors protects the public in many ways. Despite laws that require medical providers to report medical errors, they frequently choose not to comply. Washington State is one of 27 states which require reporting of serious medical errors but it frequently fails to enforce adequate reporting. Reporting requirement are […]

The Federal Reserve Board recently announced final rules designed to protect mortgage borrowers from unfair and deceptive practices by loan originators. The new rules target a lender compensation scheme in which loan originators receive more money if a borrower accepts an interest rate higher than the rate required by the […]

Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina has introduced a bill, the Mortgage Servicing Conflict of Interest Elimination Act. The bill would prohibit a company that services a loan it does not own from holding any other mortgage on that property. The proposed legislation would eliminate a built-in conflict of interest […]