In March 2013, Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project organized a small but powerful gathering of eight California consumer advocates in Sacramento to discuss patient safety issues related to California’s medical board sunset review process, hospital infections, and more. One advocate who attended, Alicia Cole, sent a terrific email about the meeting that we decided to post it as a guest blog.
California activists urge lawmakers to reform California Medical Board
We’re live blogging at Selling Sickness!
Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project is here in DC at the Selling Sickness conference, and we’ll be live blogging speaker panels while we’re here. Just come back to this page to see our live updates.
Heartbreaking news: Child discovers 2nd recall connected to her defibrillator
9-year-old child, Avery de Groh, faces a scary situation: having a recalled defibrillator which the family found out by accident. This is the second time that Avery’s family has been affected by a recalled defibrillator. Last year, Avery’s mother, Molly, shared her daughter’s story about how she was shocked by a defective defibrillator at age three and thought monsters were attacking her. Her device was later recalled by the manufacturer.
Advocates share medical device dangers in presentation at University of Texas
Medical device safety advocates, Lana Keeton and Joleen Chambers, share their personal stories of medical device harm and the need to be informed, in a presentation at the University of Texas in Austin.
Must watch videos of Medical Harm: Advocates at Patient Safety Science and Technology Summit
Videos: Patient safety advocates, Lenore Alexander and Helen Haskell recently spoke at a conference and shared heartbreaking stories about their children; both how wonderful they were and how they tragically died from medical errors.
Selling Sickness conference is putting “People Before Profits”
We are thrilled to co-sponsor and attend the upcoming Selling Sickness conference in Washington DC, co-organized by long-time drug safety advocate Kim Witczak.
Holiday in the hospital? Stay safe!
If you have to enter a hospital over the holidays, we have some advice on how to stay safe in there.
Cliff Sniffs C.diff
Last week an interesting study from the Netherlands demonstrated that a dog trained in detection was able to sniff out the presence of Clostridium difficile superbug (aka, c.difficile or c.diff) in hospital patients.
Safe Patient Summit inspires patient safety advocates
This week, Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project brought 31 energized advocates from across the U.S. to the 7th annual Safe Patient summit November 12-14, with a day of presentations at Consumer Reports headquarters in Yonkers, NY.
Advocate on the move
Find out what made CA-based patient safety advocate go to Wyoming.
The Safe Patient Project is a Consumers Union campaign focused on eliminating medical harm, improving FDA oversight of prescription drugs and promoting disclosure laws that give information to consumers about health care safety and quality.