Stephen C Schimpff's Blog – December 2010 Archive (3)

Hospitals are Unsafe - There Are Still Plenty of Preventable Medical Errors

Over the past ten years and since the publication of the Institute of Medicine landmark book “To Err Is Human” there have been many attempts to reduce preventable medical errors which are estimated to take about 100,000 lives per year – perhaps many more. The question is whether all of this effort has had a substantial clinical impact.

The results of a recently published study are therefore concerning. A…

Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 14, 2010 at 11:54am — No Comments

Two Treatments For Macular Degeneration – At Wildly Divergent Costs

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. More than 1 million Americans have neovascular or “wet” AMD and a slightly lower number have “dry” AMD which often progresses to the more severe “wet” form. Since this is a disease of aging, we can expect many more cases as the population expands in the coming years.

Neovascular AMD appears to be related, at lease in part, to excess production of vascular endothelial growth factor… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 8, 2010 at 2:25pm — No Comments

Replacing the Aortic Valve Without Open Surgery!

Aortic stenosis (a narrowing and hardening of the heart’s aortic valve) is not uncommon among older individuals. It begins without symptoms and progresses for years but, about 50% will die within 2 years once the fitst symptoms develop. The standard approach is to surgically replace the aortic valve which will improve both heart function and survival. Unfortunately, about 30% of symptomatic individuals cannot undergo surgery because of older age, other heart problems or other medical conditions… Continue

Added by Stephen C Schimpff on December 1, 2010 at 10:50am — No Comments