patients news stories on Newser

Ariz. Hospital Fires 3 for Snooping on Shooting Victims

Kevin Spak — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 13:14:19 CST

The University Medical Center in Tucson has fired three employees for illicitly accessing confidential medical records on the victims of Saturday’s shooting. The hospital is playing host to six of the people injured in the shooting, including Gabrielle Giffords, according to the Arizona Daily Star . Administrators announced the firings yesterday,...

Reform? We Need a Revolution

Harry Kimball — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:02:48 CDT

Diane McWhorter’s experience with a doctor caring for her elderly mother has her hoping for more than health care reform. “Socialized medicine, hell,” she writes on DoubleX. “How about a cultural revolution?” Her mom’s doctor, due for a vacation, dumped her on a “hospitalist” after he diagnosed a “dangerous build-up...

New Superbug Stalks Hospitals

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:53:00 CST

A deadly new superbug is stalking the world's hospitals, health experts warned today. The pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii is a burgeoning threat and proving extremely difficult to control, with a third of outbreaks resistant to front-line antibiotics, according to a study in the Lancet . Of 24,000 US cases in a...

Night Docs Need Electronic Info System to Save Lives

Drew Nelles — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:10:00 CDT

The night-float hospital system, in which one resident works the night shift so that others can sleep, was created so that patients could receive care from rested, focused doctors. But there are rarely mechanisms in place to ensure the night workers have all the patient information they need when they...

Son of Bermuda Leader Facing Sex, Fraud Rap

Kevin Spak — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:00:00 CDT

The son of Bermuda’s premier, a 37-year-old Los Angeles doctor, is facing 19 felony charges, the AP reports, including raping and molesting patients. Kevin Antario Brown, son of Premier Ewart Brown, is also under investigation for “multiple health care fraud schemes,” the LA Times reports. Bail was set at a...

Web Health Records Raise Privacy Fears

Matt Cantor — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:07:06 CDT

Medical researchers worry that Internet giants’ ventures into personal health records could turn the system on its head, threatening individual privacy, the New York Times reports. Two experts warn that companies like Microsoft and Google, whose new services put patient information on the web, aren’t subject to standard healthcare regulations,...

Meat Cleaver Murder Hunt Hits Roadblocks

Kevin Spak — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:03:02 CST

Yesterday police thought they had found the man who viciously stabbed a Manhattan psychologist to death. But after 9 hours of questioning, the prime suspect in the murder of Kathryn Faughey was released after his alibi checked out. Frustrated investigators turned to Faughey’s patient records, only to learn that privacy...

US, UK Zero in on Illegal Prescription Drug Abuse

Wesley Oliver — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:09:00 CST

American and British officials have launched campaigns to curb the illegal use of prescription drugs. The target of the British effort is doctors who "mis-prescribe" high doses of painkillers and sleeping pills that officials say are proving dangerously addictive, the Guardian reports. Across the Atlantic, Washington is spearheading an initiative...

Antidepressant Studies Distort Drugs' Usefulness

Wesley Oliver — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:37:58 CST

Roughly half of the medical studies involving antidepressants that found little or no effect on patients have gone unpublished or had their findings mischaracterized as positive, a new study reveals. The emphasis on publishing only studies with glowing reviews gives patients and doctors a false sense of the effectiveness of...