Medical: January 2009 Archives

Doctors' bad handwriting may be the source of up to 7,000 deaths in the US each year. That's why President Obama's economic recovery package is expected to contain around $20 billion for computerized medical expert notes.  FastCompany.com writes:

The IT-heavy hospitals were 9% less likely to lose a heart-attack patient and 55% less likely to lose a bypass patient than those hospitals who have only light use of health IT.

And the benefits of using digital medical records extend beyond patient deaths into having fewer patients with medical complications, and reduced operating costs. According to Dr. Neil Poe of Johns Hopkins, "If these results were to hold for all hospitals in the United States, computerizing notes and records might have the potential to save 100,000 lives annually."

Doctors' bad handwriting may be the source of up to 7,000 deaths in the US each year. That's why President Obama's economic recovery package is expected to contain around $20 billion for computerized medical notes.  FastCompany.com writes:

By connecting hospitals and doctors over the net, the speed and ease of sharing information will increase. Prescription fraud and abuse may decline as well, along with the potential for misunderstanding another medical expert's notes.

A recent piece of research from hospitals in Texas highlights exactly these benefits. The study found that patients who were treated in "paperless" hospitals--specifically those that ranked highest in the use of health IT to manage patient details--were 15% less likely to die than patients in hospitals ranked at the lowest end. And when it comes to life-or-death situations, a 15% margin is enormous.

Dentist expert Dr. Greg Goddard testified Thursday before a Yolo Superior Court jury on the second day of Mark Anderson's trial that a general practice dentist has no business touching a patient's pectoral muscles, even in diagnosing the cause of facial aches and pains. DailyDemocrat.com reports:

Anderson, a longtime Woodland dentist, is facing 21 counts of sexual battery for touching the breasts of female patients who visited his practice between February 2005 and August 2007.

Anderson has pled not guilty to the charges, saying he touched the women's breasts to diagnose or treat temporomandibular disorder, also known as TMD, a painful condition related to muscle tension in the upper body. TMD is similar to the symptoms of temporomandibular joint affliction, or TMJ, and the terms are often used interchangeably.

However, Goddard, the prosecution's expert witness, told jurors Thursday that if a dentist was trying to diagnose TMD, he would be concerned only with the jaw and neck muscles. The pectoral muscles are not known to trigger pain in the jaw area, said Goddard, a retired professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry. He has written a self-care book called, "TMJ: The Jaw Connection: The Overlooked Diagnosis."

When people enter the emergency room at the Community Health Center of Branch County  (CHC), MI, Laura Kopacz or one of two other trained nurses are called in if criminal sexual conduct is suspected.  Forensic nursing experts do testing to determine if a crime has been committed and are qualified to testify as expert witnesses. “This is a difficult topic. We don’t like to hear about it. . .but it happens in Coldwater. It happens a lot.”  Kopacz says 98 percent of assault victims are females, 80 percent of all sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows, and most victims are between 13 and 18 years old.

Excerpted from <a href="http://TheDailyReporter.com">TheDailyReporter.com</a>.