When physicians provide poor quality care, their patients are typically the last to know. Some physician backgrounds may be available in your state, but can you tell which ones have the most complaints, malpractice claims or disciplinary actions? Knowing the background information on your doctor could save your life.
The more physicians you see, the greater the chance of miscommunication and overtreatment
Here’s a look at some of the important work the Health Ratings Center has done since its creation in 2008.
New video highlights some of Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center’s important accomplishments: assessing hospitals for safety, surgeons for their heart bypass records, and drugs for their effectiveness.
Are you interested in reading the medical notes your doctor writes about you? Some ten thousand patients around the country recently had that chance. And both they, and their doctors, said it led to better care.
Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project opposes SB 1483 (Steinberg), which would establish a costly and unnecessary government entity to serve as a substance abuse and mental health treatment referral service for physicians, who are well-equipped to find their own therapy services, while leaving patients uninformed and unprotected.
Monday, March 11, 2013 Consumers Union Urges California to Adopt Medical Board Reforms to Improve Oversight of Centers and Problem Physicians State Lawmakers Begin Sunset Review of the Medical Board of California SACRAMENTO, CA – Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, urged state lawmakers today to implement a number of Continue Reading
Consumer Reports Poll: Almost 9 in 10 Americans Say Public Should Have Access to Information Collected by Feds on Doctors
HHS decision to remove online access runs counter to Administration pledge to promote transparency
When Patients File Complaints Against Health Care Workers Washington Law Could Serve As A Model For Other States.
A new poll released today by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found high levels of public concern about hospital-acquired infections and other forms of medical harm.
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.
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.
Last month on July 25, members of the Washington Advocates for Patient Safety (WAPS) commemorated Patient Safety Day in their home state of Washington by joining several people working on health care issues in the state and giving a voice to patients who have experienced preventable medical harm.
This week I read a new article written by a dedicated patient safety advocate, Kerry O’Connell, published in Health Affairs, a prestigious healthcare journal.
A Consumer Reports national poll found that almost 9 in 10 Americans (88%) said the public should have access to federally collected information about problems with doctors.
Rocklin doctor has license suspended after a court found that her practicing medicine “will endanger the public health, safety and welfare.”
LA Times reports: “The Medical Board of California on Friday embraced a host of reforms aimed at combating prescription drug abuse and reducing overdose deaths but balked at a proposal to strip it of its authority to investigate physician misconduct.”
Michael Hiltzik of LA Times: “Legislators should sunset the medical board’s do-nothing, know-nothing membership and executive director, and start over fresh.”
Nearly all of the hospitals ex-nurse Charles Cullen worked at were suspicious of the serial killer. So why did his career last 16 years? Steve Kroft reports.
Learn about the potential health risks associated with unsupervised medi-spas.
This tip sheet explains steps you can take in your doctor’s office to deal with your concerns about quality. It also tells you how to contact places that regulate or oversee doctors.
The site http://www.docboard.org/docfinder.html is run by Administrators in Medicine, the national organization of Executive Directors of the state medical boards. It allows users to look up whatever medical boards post on-line about their licensees. Users can search many states simultaneously with one click. For states for which that doesn’t work, the site provides links to the individual state board web sites.
CA medical board meetings on YouTube.
A Guide to Speaking Up When You Are Dissatisfied With A Health Care Experience by Health Care For All.
ProPublica takes a look at six recent multi-million dollar fines that drug companies have agreed to pay for inappropriately, and in some cases illegally, promoting prescription drugs.
In 2001, Patty and David Skolnik spent nearly three years watching their only child, Michael, play victim to a broken system as a result of unnecessary brain surgery. Due to medical error caused by negligence and incompetence, routine expectations of our healthcare system proved ineffective in providing quality medical care and patient safety for 22 year old Michael Skolnik.
The surgeon was not prepared for my sedative needs, did not listen to my request of what to give me, and because I was holding up the Endoscopic Unit, he called for an anesthesiologist I had never met. He never asked a single question, nor did he check out my charts. He simply injected me with Propofol, without the Lidocaine to ease the pain. I was in hell, and then out for a quick intubation. As a heart patient with all the symptoms from that, I should not have had Propofol. I woke up coughing my guts and lungs up as they extubated me. I was on the other side of the hospital in the main recovery area. Neither doctor came to tell me what happened and what might happen later.
I was involved in a motor vehicle accident. I arrived at the hospital alert but with a dislocated hip and a fractured ankle. At the time of treatment I was told they needed x-rays and I would be getting something for pain.
98,000 people die each year needlessly because of preventable medical harm. Efforts to reduce this are few and fragmented. With little transparency and no public reporting (except where hard fought state laws now require it), scarce data does not paint a picture of real progress.
In this report (PDF) we give the country a failing grade on progress on select recommendations we believe necessary to create a health-care system free of preventable medical harm.
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.