My lede:

Technology that helps physicians remotely track more patients in intensive care units also improves care outcomes, according to a Journal of the American Medical Association study published in May that contradicts research finding no benefit.

So-called tele-ICUs allow intensivists, critical care nurses, respiratory therapists and other critical-care experts to see patients on video, receive electronic clinical data on their progress and communicate in real time with the health professionals in the unit to make changes in care.

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My lede:

In front of her fellow first-year medical students, Natsai Nyakudarika spoke about the difficulty she had looking at the face of her anatomy class cadaver, a man named Gerald.

“I can’t look at Gerald’s face,” she said. “I’m afraid that I will see in it the face of everyone I’ve loved who has died.”

Nyakudarika was among several students at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who talked about their experiences with dissection as part of the school’s closing ceremony for its anatomy class.

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Physicians many times don’t inform family members that other interventions, such as hand-feeding, may improve quality of life.

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My lede:

New York physicians may have to take off their neckties, jewelry, wristwatches and long-sleeved white coats when caring for patients if a bill under consideration in the state Legislature becomes law.

The bill, proposed in April in the state Senate, calls for a “hygienic dress code council” within the New York Health Dept. to consider advancing a ban on neckties and requiring physicians and other health professionals to adopt a “bare below the elbow” dress code in an effort to slash hospital-acquired infections.

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My lede:

Patients with low incomes or chronic conditions who are covered by high-deductible health plans are not likelier than well-to-do or healthy patients to skip preventive care, said a study published in April.

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My lede:

Physicians and other health professionals at Guantanamo Bay failed to properly document and report evidence “highly consistent” with detainee allegations of torture, says a case review of nine detainees’ medical records published in the April issue of PLoS Medicine.

Three of the detainees had documented physical injuries that were highly consistent with their allegations of abuse, including contusions, bone fractures, lacerations and peripheral nerve damage, said the study, written by two experts on the evidence of torture. The reviewers were hired as medical consultants by attorneys for some of the detainees.

The detainees said they were exposed to interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, stress positions, beatings, forced nudity, prolonged isolation and sexual molestation — all recognized as torture by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as well as the U.S. government before 2002.

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My lede:

More education and research and superior product designs are needed to end unsafe injection practices that have led to 30 infectious-disease outbreaks in the last 10 years, said a coalition of physicians, nurses, manufacturers and government officials.

In the last decade, more than 125,000 patients have been notified about potential exposure to infectious diseases such as hepatitis C due to reuse of syringes, according to the Safe Injection Practices Coalition, which was formed in 2008. Along with Premier, an alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals, the coalition co-sponsored an April 26 meeting in Washington, D.C., to discuss the problem.

“These are largely preventable medical errors — they are not so different from wrong-side surgery,” said Joseph Perz, DrPH, who leads the prevention team in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a member of the coalition.

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My lede:

Articles in the most-read American news outlets usually fail to adequately discuss the pros and cons of new medical treatments, tests, products and procedures, according to an analysis of nearly 1,500 health stories from the last five years.

The finding is based on reviews done by a panel of more than 30 physicians, scientists, public health researchers, medical journalists and other experts affiliated with the website HealthNewsReview.org, which marked its fifth anniversary in April. Less than 30% of stories explicitly discussed the cost of new treatments, and only about one-third adequately covered their benefits and harms or addressed the quality of the medical evidence offered in their support.

“On most days, on most stories, we’re giving a kid-in-the-candy-store view where we’re making everything look terrific without noting the downside or noting the price tag,” said Gary Schwitzer, a former TV news reporter and publisher of HealthNewsReview.org. “And we wonder why we have a confused health care consumer population?”

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Those hired to care for seniors with cognitive problems also have trouble understanding medication instructions.

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My lede:

The number of hospitalizations due to medication side effects jumped by more than half between 2004 and 2008, says a federal report that heightened concerns about polypharmacy among an aging U.S. population.

Antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, benzodiazepines, corticosteroids, insulin, and blood thinners and other cardiovascular drugs were among the leading causes of more than 2.7 million hospital stays and treat-and-release visits to emergency departments in 2008, said the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality report, released in April.

Opiates such as codeine and morphine were a principal culprit, implicated in 121,200 hospital stays and 44,300 ED visits. The latest confirmation of problems associated with painkillers came as the Obama administration launched an inter- agency attack on opioid misuse that a White House report dubbed “America’s prescription drug abuse crisis.”

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