Cancer Drug Causes Patient To Lose Fingerprints And Be Detained By US Immigration

Immigration officials held a cancer patient for four hours before they allowed him to enter the USA because one of his cancer drugs caused his fingerprints to disappear. His oncologist is now advising all cancer patients who are being treated with the commonly used drug, capecitabine, to carry a doctor’s letter with them if they want to travel to the USA.

The incident is highlighted in a letter to the cancer journal, Annals of Oncology

Coalition For Quality & Patient Safety Of Chicagoland PSO Taps ECRI Institute PSO For Support

ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) is pleased to announce an agreement with the Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety (CQPS) of Chicagoland PSO to provide patient safety data collection, reporting, and analysis. The Chicagoland PSO focuses on local experience, patterns, trends, and patient safety initiatives specific to Chicago and the surrounding counties. CQPS will coordinate its PSO and other patient safety efforts with other Illinois-based hospital and primary care associations, the Illinois Department of Public Health, consumers and consumer advocates, other patient safety and quality improvement stakeholders, and existing patient safety collaboratives across the state.

Statement From DHHS Sec. Lanier Cansler On Patient Abuse Incidents At Central Regional Hospital – North Carolina

Both Governor Perdue and I pledged transparency at the beginning of this administration. Today, we learned of three incidents which have occurred at Central Regional Hospital involving patient care in the last few weeks.

On Feb. 1, a patient was assaulted by a health care technician at the CRH Raleigh campus. This incident was not reported to hospital administrators until an anonymous complaint was received by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) inspectors.

Nurses Play Key Role In Improving Quality Of Patient Care

Quality has become a major focus within health care, especially in the areas of regulatory quality, quality assurance, quality improvement and patient safety. As this focus increases, nurses’ involvement in quality improvement activities is likely to expand in coming years. In the December 2008 issue of Urologic Nursing, Leslie W. Hall, Shirley M. Moore, and Jane H. Barnsteiner state that by actively participating in improving health care, nurses benefit their patients and experience more joy in their work.

Patient Experience PSA (Public Service Agreement) Scores – Annual Update, UK

The following statistics were released today by the Department of Health:

Patient Experience PSA (Public Service Agreement) scores update to include results from the 2007 and early 2008 patient surveys, and revisions to previous PSA scores

Background

This publication updates the patient experience scores previously published on 22 April 2008. These figures report final progress against the PSA target for sustained improvement in patient experience for the 2005-08 spending review period. Results have been updated to include scores derived from survey results published by the Healthcare Commission in 2007 and early 2008. There are new data points for ‘adult inpatients’, ‘primary care’ and ‘community mental health’.

Final Rule Issued For Patient Safety Organization, US Department Of Health

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule for Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs). The rule becomes effective on Jan. 19, 2009. It provides final requirements and procedures for PSOs, new entities, with which clinicians and health care providers can work to collect, aggregate and analyze data – within a legally secure environment of privilege and confidentiality protections – to identify and reduce patient care risks and hazards.

Prepared Patient: Can Hospital Report Cards Help You?

Consumers are awash in information they can use to find the best deals on everything from dishwashers to car insurance. But is it possible to comparison shop for a hospital?

Hospital report cards which can include information on everything from how clean the hallways are to how many patients die after a certain operation have been touted as a valuable source of information for savvy hospital shoppers. But these report cards may not be as useful to you as a Consumer Reports guide. The information in them can be out of date, hard to interpret, and aimed more at the hospitals themselves than at patients. And for many patients, “choosing” a hospital just isn’t an option no matter what the report card says.

Epping GP Surgery Named ‘Practice Of The Year’ For Its Patient Access System, UK

The inaugural Management in Practice Awards recognised the achievements of UK general practice managers and practice teams in providing an excellent standard of service to their patients. The awards ceremony took place during the Management in Practice Event at the Birmingham NEC on 8 October – see http://www.managementinpractice.com/awards.

Practices across the UK nominated themselves by submitting written accounts of their projects, which were then shortlisted by a panel of expert judges in each category.

Elan And Biogen Idec Initiate First Clinical Trial Of TYSABRI(R) In Oncology – First Multiple Myeloma Patient Treated

Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE: ELN) and Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) announced the initiation of the first clinical trial of TYSABRI (natalizumab) in oncology. The first dose of TYSABRI was administered yesterday in the trial. The objectives of this Phase I/II study are to evaluate the safety and potential anti-tumor activity of TYSABRI in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. TYSABRI is a recombinant, humanized monoclonal antibody that targets the adhesion molecule VLA4 (also known as alpha-4 integrin) that is expressed on the surface of many types of immune cells. VLA4 is also found on the surface of multiple myeloma cells and may be involved in their survival.

Community-Acquired Pneumonia In The Elderly: Every Tenth Patient Dies In Western Countries

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) represents a public health problem of substantial magnitude, and remains the leading cause of death due to infectious diseases, with an incidence ranging from 1.6 to 10.6 per 1,000 adults per year in Europe.

Owing to demographic changes, elderly patients now represent about 50% of CAP patients in western countries.

Considering that there is much discrepancy in the literature regarding factors influencing the outcome in this subgroup, a prospective study undertaken by Henning Kothe (University of Lübeck, Germany) and his colleagues was conducted to assess the prognostic factors of CAP with a special emphasis on age, residence status, comorbidities and antimicrobial treatment. The data were derived from a multicentre cohort study initiated by the German Competence network for CAP (CAPNETZ; http://www.capnetz.de), which includes 10 clinical centres (hospitals and outpatient facilities from all levels of healthcare).