Forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed, mix up the salt with the pepper, accidentally leave a red sock in the white load of laundry or fail to take your vitamins, and it probably isn’t going to be a life-altering mistake. Errors as small as these ones,...
Month: February 2014
UPMC Altoona Nurses Say Patient Safety Is Their Primary Concern
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Altoona recently underwent a change in ownership. Although the name of the hospital has changed several times over the years, nurses that have worked there for two decades or more said that this is the first change that has...
FDA: Are Drug Ads’ Side Effects Warnings Doing Their Job?
We have all probably heard them, those long listings of side effects reported at the end of a television drug commercial. Listening closely, some of those side effects include nausea, shortness of breath, internal bleeding, allergic reaction, dry mouth, heart attack...
Hospital Puts 18 Patients At Risk For Rare But Fatal Disorder
Hospitals are filled with protocol. A few of these rules are utilized on a daily basis, like requiring doctors to wash hands before and after entering the room of a post-operative patient. In other cases, the protocols may be used less often, like one requiring that...
Female Heart Disease: Primary Docs Often To Blame For Misdiagnosis
Last week, we wrote about the importance of a fast and accurate diagnosis in cases where a condition is potentially life-threatening. As just one example, heart disease/heart attacks are commonly either misdiagnosed by physicians or not diagnosed at all. It goes...