EHRs could mean fewer malpractice claims

By Mike Milard
IT Health News
Originally published August 3, 2012

A study by Harvard Medical School-affiliated researchers, published in June in the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed that Massachusetts physicians who used electronic health records saw a reduction in malpractice claims.

Correlation does not imply causation, of course. But the report's authors say their findings suggest, "implementation of EHRs may reduce malpractice claims and, at the least, appears not to increase claims as providers adapt to using EHRs."

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"We found that the rate of malpractice claims when EHRs were used was about one-sixth the rate when EHRs were not used," the researchers write. "This study adds to the literature suggesting that EHRs have the potential to improve patient safety and supports the conclusions of our prior work, which showed a lower risk of paid claims among physicians using EHRs. By examining all closed claims, rather than only those for which a payment was made, our findings suggest that a reduction in errors is likely responsible for at least a component of this association, since the absolute rate of claims was lower post-EHR adoption."

The entire article is here.

Sexual Assault In The Military

The Huffington Post Live
Originally posted August 15, 2012

Actress Jennifer Beals joined a HuffPost community discussion Wednesday afternoon on sexual assault in the military. Beals sat down with HuffPost Live host Janet Varney, former Staff Sgt. Sandra Lee, and president of the organization Protect Our Defenders, Nancy Parrish, who blogged on HuffPost in late July on the topic.

Here is the third segment:

The entire page is here.

‘Economic suicides’ shake Europe

By Arianna Eunjung Cha
The Washington Post - Business
Originally published August 14, 2012

Here is part of the article.

So many people have been killing themselves and leaving behind notes citing financial hardship that European media outlets have a special name for them: “economic suicides.” Surveys are also showing increasing signs of mental stress: a jump in the use of antidepressants and illicit drugs, a rise in depression and anxiety among workers worried about salary cuts or being laid off, and an increase in the use of sick leave due to psychological problems.

“People are more and more uncertain about their future, which is leading to a sharp rise in mental health problems,” said Maria Nyman, director of Brussels-based Mental Health Europe, a multinational coalition of mental health organizations and educational institutions.

In recent years, researchers in the United States and elsewhere have repeatedly identified a correlation between suicides and unemployment or other economic distress. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that suicides increased during periods of economic stress, including the Great Depression, the oil crisis of the 1970s and the double-dip recession of the 1980s. Other studies have estimated that people with employment difficulties are two to three times as likely to commit suicide than the population as whole.

The entire story is here.

More than 14K affected in Oregon hospital breach

By Beth Walsh
CMIO
Originally published August 6, 2012

Yet another hospital has suffered a data breach. The administration at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital (OHSU) in Portland is sending letters to the families of 702 pediatric patients after a USB drive containing some of their patient information was stolen. In total, data for more than 14,000 patients was stored on the drive, along with information for about 200 OHSU employees.

The entire story is here.

Editorial note: It is advisable to not take patient data home, whether it is stored on a laptop or in some type of portable storage device such as a jump drive.

How to Train Graduate Students in Research Ethics: Lessons From 6 Universities

By Beth Mole

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Originally published August 14, 2012

What do graduate students consider ethical research conduct? It depends on their adviser, says a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools.

According to the report, which is being released today, graduate students overly rely on their advisers, rather than university resources, for guidance on thorny issues such as spotting self-plagiarism, identifying research misconduct, or understanding conflicts of interest.

The findings come three years after the National Science Foundation said that it's up to universities to make sure researchers receive ethics training required by the federal government.

Graduate students who were surveyed as part of the council's Project for Scholarly Integrity felt they had a good grasp of research ethics, said Daniel Denecke, associate vice president for programs and best practices at the Council of Graduate Schools. But "when we really drill down," he said, "we see a real need on the part of students to know how to handle perceived misconduct."

The report, "Research and Scholarly Integrity in Graduate Education: A Comprehensive Approach," outlines the findings from the project, which began in 2008 and is financed by the federal Office of Research Integrity.

The entire story is here.

Integrating Integrity

By Kaustuv Basu
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published August 14, 2012

Graduate schools need to do a better job teaching their students about responsible and ethical research, according to a report being released today by the Council on Graduate Schools.

If they do, they will have more success preventing research misconduct, the report states.
The report, Research and Scholarly Integrity in Graduate Education: A Comprehensive Approach, suggests that university administrators should work with faculty members and graduate students across disciplines to boost research integrity. For example, a successful workshop offered in one discipline can be adapted for another discipline or a course in research ethics taught intermittently by one professor could be taught by other faculty members.

The entire article is here.

War Wounds

By Nicholas D. Kristof
The New York Times - Sunday Review
Originally published on August 10, 2012

IT would be so much easier, Maj. Ben Richards says, if he had just lost a leg in Iraq.

Instead, he finds himself losing his mind, or at least a part of it. And if you want to understand how America is failing its soldiers and veterans, honoring them with lip service and ceremonies but breaking faith with them on all that matters most, listen to the story of Major Richards.

For starters, he’s brilliant. (Or at least he was.) He speaks Chinese and taught at West Point, and his medical evaluations suggest that until his recent problems he had an I.Q. of about 148. After he graduated from West Point, in 2000, he received glowing reviews.

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Military suicides are the starkest gauge of our nation’s failure to care adequately for those who served in uniform. With America’s wars winding down, the United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Include veterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in war this year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.

President Obama said recently that it was an “outrage” that some service members and veterans sought help but couldn’t get it: “We’ve got to do better. This has to be all hands on deck.” Admirable words, but so far they’ve neither made much impact nor offered consolation to those who call the suicide prevention hot line and end up on hold.

The military’s problems with mental health services go far beyond suicide or the occasional murders committed by soldiers and veterans. Far more common are people like Richards, who does not contemplate violence of any kind but is still profoundly disabled.

The entire story is here.

Psychologist Has License Suspended

By Robert Cook
PortsmouthPatch - Public Safety
Originally published August 14, 2012

An Exeter psychologist charged with running a prostitution operation out of his Portsmouth apartment has had his license temporarily suspended by the New Hampshire Board of Mental Health.

Alexander Marino, 38, of 565 Sagamore Ave., in Portsmouth is currently free on bail following his arrest for allowing his apartment in Sagamore Court to be used for prostitution. But until Monday, he was free to keep treating patients.

Peggy Lynch, the board's administrative assistant, said the board has scheduled a review hearing with Marino at Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord on Aug. 27 to determine if his license to practice psychiatry in New Hampshire will remain suspended or be re-instated as his criminal case proceeds through the court system.

The entire article is here.

In Ill Doctor, a Surprise Reflection of Who Picks Assisted Suicide

by Katie Hafner
The New York Times
Originally published on August 11, 2012

Dr. Richard Wesley has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the incurable disease that lays waste to muscles while leaving the mind intact. He lives with the knowledge that an untimely death is chasing him down, but takes solace in knowing that he can decide exactly when, where and how he will die.

Under Washington State’s Death With Dignity Act, his physician has given him a prescription for a lethal dose of barbiturates. He would prefer to die naturally, but if dying becomes protracted and difficult, he plans to take the drugs and die peacefully within minutes.

“It’s like the definition of pornography,” Dr. Wesley, 67, said at his home here in Seattle, with Mount Rainier in the distance. “I’ll know it’s time to go when I see it.”

Washington followed Oregon in allowing terminally ill patients to get a prescription for drugs that will hasten death. Critics of such laws feared that poor people would be pressured to kill themselves because they or their families could not afford end-of-life care. But the demographics of patients who have gotten the prescriptions are surprisingly different than expected, according to data collected by Oregon and Washington through 2011.

Dr. Wesley is emblematic of those who have taken advantage of the law. They are overwhelmingly white, well educated and financially comfortable. And they are making the choice not because they are in pain but because they want to have the same control over their deaths that they have had over their lives.

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Dr. Linda Ganzini, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University, published a study in 2009 of 56 Oregonians who were in the process of requesting physician-aided dying.
      

“Everybody thought this was going to be about pain,” Dr. Ganzini said. “It turns out pain is kind of irrelevant.”

By far the most common reasons, Dr. Ganzini’s study found, were the desire to be in control, to remain autonomous and to die at home. “It turns out that for this group of people, dying is less about physical symptoms than personal values,” she said.

The entire story is here.