New Database Reveals Thousands of Hospital Violation Reports New Database Reveals Thousands of Hospital Violation Reports

Hospital (Photo credit: Ralf Heß)

 

From the March 20, 2013 State Line article

 

Hospitals make mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes.  A patient may get the wrong medication or even undergo surgery intended for another person.  When errors like these are reported, state and federal officials inspect the hospital in question and file a detailed report.

Now, for the first time, this vital information on the quality and safety of the nation’s hospitals has been made available to the public online.

A new website, www.hospitalinspections.org, includes detailed reports of hospital violations dating back to January 2011, searchable by city, state, name of the hospital and key word.  Previously, these reports were filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), and released only through a Freedom of Information Act request, an arduous, time-consuming process.  Even then, the reports were provided in paper format only, making them cumbersome to analyze.

Release of this critical electronic information by CMS is the result of years of advocacy by the Association of Health Care Journalists, with funding from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.  The new database makes full inspection reports for acute care hospitals and rural critical access hospitals instantly available to journalists and consumers interested in the quality of their local hospitals.

The database also reveals national trends in hospital errors. For example, key word searches yield the incidence of certain violations across all hospitals.  A search on the word “abuse,” for example, yields 862 violations at 204 hospitals since 2011. …

 

Related articles

• Series on N.C. hospitals wins national award (charlotteobserver.com)
• Medical execs dispute hospital study (krqe.com)
• Govt. To Publish Data On What Drug & Device Makers Pay To Individual Doctors & Hospitals (consumerist.com)
• Time Magazine Study Reveals Hospitals Hiking up Medical Bills (counselheal.com)

 

[Reblog] Curēus, an open-access medical journal with crowdsourcing

[Reblog] Curēus, an open-access medical journal with crowdsourcing December 23, 2012

Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Web 2.0, Medical journalism,Medicine 2.0, e-Science.
trackbackJohn Adler who is a neurosurgeon at Stanford just launched Curēus, an open-source medical journal that leverages crowdsourcing to make scientific research more readily available to the general public. What do you think?

Based in Palo Alto, California, Curēus is the medical journal for a new generation of both doctors AND patients. Leveraging the power of an online, crowd-sourced community platform, Curēus promotes medical research by offering tools that better serve and highlight the people who create it, resulting in better research, faster publication and easier access for everyone.

We make it easier and faster to publish your work – it’s always free and you retain the copyright. What’s more, the Curēus platform is designed to provide a place for physicians to build their digital CV anchored with their posters and papers.

The Curēus site also has..

• Posters
• A supportive care collection
• Google map for who is posting (couldn’t get the map to “work” for me..)
• “Instructions for Authors”

Currently, a relatively few number of papers online. The concept is good, here’s hoping this is not a flash in the pan, but the wave of the future.

Related articles

• Curēus Continues a Trend of Crowdsourcing Medical Journals (medgadget.com)
• Curēus, an open-access medical journal with crowdsourcing (scienceroll.com)
• Curēus, New Open-Source Medical Journal Created by Stanford Neurosurgeon John Adler,Scientific Research More Readily Available, Peer To Peer Reviews (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• A new open-source medical journal has been launched (skeptical-science.com)
• Crowdsourcing Medical Journals (fastcompany.com)
• Medical Journal Gets Social With Crowdsourcing Platform (iphonesavior.com)

Look up medications more quickly and easily on Google

From the Google Announcement

11/30/12 | 9:00:00 AM

Labels: knowledge graph

We get a lot of queries for medicine on Google. So to make it quick and easy for you to learn about medications, we’ll start showing key facts — side effects, related medications, links to in-depth resources, and more — right on the search results page.

This data comes from the U.S. FDA, the National Library of Medicine, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, among others. It’s part of the Knowledge Graph – our project to map out billions of real-world things, from famous artists to roller coasters to planets (and now medications). We hope you find this useful, but remember that these results do not act as medical advice.

Posted by Aaron Brown, Senior Product Manager, Search

 

Related Resources (because there are other reputable resources besides the one’s Google mines! with additional drug info)

 

 

 

Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information 

Learn about your prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines. Includes side effects, dosage, special precautions, and more.

Browse dietary supplements and herbal remedies to learn about their effectiveness, usual dosage, and drug interactions.

 

 

 

Dietary Supplements Labels Database 

Information about label ingredients in more than 6,000 selected brands of dietary supplements. It enables users to compare label ingredients in different brands. Information is also provided on the “structure/function” claims made by manufacturers.

These claims by manufacturers have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Companies may not market as dietary supplements any products that are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

 

 

Drug Information Portal

A gateway to selected drug information from the US government.  It links you to information on over 12,000 drugs from trusted consumer drug information sources (as MedlinePlus Drug Information), the US Food and Drug Information (as Drugs @FDA), LactMed(summary of effects on breastfeeding), and more.

 

 

PIllbox (Beta)

Pillbox enables rapid identification of unknown solid-dosage medications (tablets/capsules) based on physical characteristics and high-resolution images.
Once a medication is identified, Pillbox provides links to drug information and drug labels.

 

 

Medwatch

Clinically important safety information and reporting serious problems with human medical products.

Safety information includes drug information, recalls & alerts, drug shortage information, and medication guides.

Anyone can report  serious medical product problems and/or unlawful sale of medical products on the internet

 

Together we

MedEffect Canada

Adverse Reaction Online Database contains information about suspected adverse reactions (also known as side effects) to health products, recalls, advisories, and warnings from the Canadian government

 

 

More Drug Resources at Drug Information Resources 

      (by the Consumer and Patient Health Information Section of the Medical Library Association)

 

Including…..

• CenterWatch/Clinical Trials Listing Service
  This useful resource lists newly approved drugs, drugs in current clinical research, weekly trial results, as well as a link to the PDR Family Medical Guide for Prescription Drugs.
• Longwood Herbal Task Force
  This site has in-depth monographs about herbal products and supplements written by health professionals and students. It provides clinical information summaries, patient fact sheets, and information about toxicity and interactions as well as relevant links. The task force is a cooperative effort of the staff and students from Children’s Hospital, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
• FDA Recalls  provides information gathered from press releases and other public notices about certain recalls of FDA-regulated products
• Epocrates

 

Related articles

• Herbal and Dietary Supplements Can Adversely Affect Prescribed Drugs, Says Extensive Review (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Natural Does Not Mean Safe (slate.com)
• Warning out on supplements (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Drug industry’s free speech helps doctors (cnn.com)
• Supplements not on an FDA approved list could disappear (prn.fm)
• Look up medications more quickly and easily on Google (insidesearch.blogspot.com)
• Google Adds Key Facts About Medicines To Its Knowledge Graph Results (techcrunch.com)
• Google: This is your Knowledge Graph on drugs (news.cnet.com)

 

 

From a recent CAPHIS** listserv item

As part of a project funded by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and
Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and the State of Illinois, Department of Human
Services, a number of multilingual educational materials are being
developed.

They cover nutrition and health during and after pregnancy,
as well as during infancy and early childhood. These resources may be
especially helpful for WIC programs who serve refugee populations. These
free materials are available as web-videos and audio files in English,
Nepali and Burmese. Arabic and Bhutanese versions are under
development. Written handouts for all languages are also under
development.

These new materials can be found under the
Pregnancy/Reproduction and Food/Nutrition topics on the Healthy Roads
Media website – www.healthyroadsmedia.org
As always, any feedback to help guide the development of these kinds 
of resources is very helpful.

 

**CAPHIS (Consumer and Public Health Information Section of the Medical Librarian Association)
has compiled a Top 100 List of Health Websites you can trust.

These lists of resources expand upon the MLA Top Ten List.

General Health Women’s Health Men’s Health

Parenting & Kids Senior Health Specific Health

For Health Professionals Drug Information Resources Other Useful Health Sites

 

NIH launches free database of drugs associated with liver injury

 

From the 12 October 2012 news release

A free source of evidence-based information for health care professionals and for researchers studying liver injury associated with prescription and over-the-counter drugs, herbals, and dietary supplements is now available from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers and health care professionals can use the LiverTox database to identify basic and clinical research questions to be answered and to chart optimal ways to diagnose and control drug-induced liver injury.

Drug-induced liver injury is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, accounting for at least half of cases. It occurs at all ages, in men and women, and in all races and ethnic groups. Drug-induced liver disease is more likely to occur among older adults because they tend to take more medications than younger people. Some drugs directly damage the liver, while others cause damage indirectly or by an allergic reaction. The most important element to managing drug-induced liver injury is to identify the drug that’s causing the problem and appropriate steps to eliminate or reduce damage to the liver.

“Because drug-induced liver disease is not a single, common disease, it is very difficult to diagnose, with each drug causing a somewhat different pattern of liver damage,” said Jay H. Hoofnagle, M.D., the major creator of LiverTox and director of the Liver Disease Research Branch at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). “Doctors have to rule out all other causes of liver disease before saying that a patient has drug-induced injury liver.”

LiverTox has a searchable database of about 700 medications available in the United States by prescription or over the counter. Over the next few years, another 300 drugs will be added. The database offers these features:

• An overview of drug-induced liver injury, including diagnostic criteria, the role of liver biopsy, descriptions of different clinical patterns and standard definitions.
• A detailed report of each drug, including background, case study, product package insert, chemical makeup and structure, dose recommendations and references with links.
• An interactive section, allowing users to report cases of drug-induced liver injury to the LiverTox website. Reports will be automatically forwarded to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) MedWatch program. MedWatch allows the public and health care professionals to report adverse events, product defects, or product use errors. The FDA uses the information to monitor product safety.

“LiverTox is the result of a significant scientific collaboration between the national and international clinical and research communities, the NIDDK and the National Library of Medicine (NLM),” said Steven Phillips, M.D., co-sponsor of LiverTox and director of NLM’s Division of Specialized Information Services. “LiverTox demonstrates the importance of using informatics to provide easy access to evidenced-based information to clinicians and researchers that will improve the health and well-being of all and help prevent unnecessary morbidity and mortality, worldwide. I hope the dynamic LiverTox model can be used to create a new suite of databases that can identify drug-induced injury to other organs such as the heart, kidney, and lung. The National Library of Medicine is honored to be part of this significant scientific endeavor.”

Related articles

• NIH launches LiverTox a free database of drugs linked to liver injury (hslnews.wordpress.com)
• NIH launches free database of drugs associated with liver injury (medicalxpress.com)
• Drug Induced Liver Dysfunction Lab Values (jessicamhpower.wordpress.com)

 

Information Connections – website for parents of children with developmental disabilities and chronic diseases

 

From the web page at the National Network of Medical Libraries

Connect with Information Connections

By Nalini Mahajan
Director, Medical Library
Marionjoy Rehabilitation Hospital

Information Connections is a website for parents of children with developmental disabilities and chronic diseases with a special focus on Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Down Syndrome, and Traumatic Brain Injury. The informative website was developed and launched by the Marianjoy Medical Library with funding from the National Network of Library of Medicine, Greater Midwest Region (NN/LM GMR) and is sponsored by Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital. It is accessible to anyone from anywhere and it is free.

Since its initial launch in April 2011, InformationConnections.org has helped thousands of families seeking help on these topics. Website usage and feedback in our first year has been exceptional.

We would love to promote our Web site to everyone who could benefit from this wonderful resource and would appreciate any help from you. Please spread the word around; like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, feel free to blog about us, and place a link to us on your website. Our goal is to have 500 friends by the end of 2012. Once we reach the magic number of 500 friends, 3 winners be selected randomly and each will receive a $25.00 gift certificate.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2012 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Consumer Health, Funding, News from the Region, Outreach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

 

 

[Reblog] Googling cancer information: Tips from a cancer survivor

 

The Human Body — Cancer (Photo credit: n0cturbulous)

 

From the 19 August 2012 article at KevinMD.com

 

by ANDREW GRIFFITH on August 19th, 2012 | in PATIENT| 4 responses

When I got my phone call with the diagnosis of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), my instinct, like so many of us, was to Google. Today, 3 years later, I have learned about what to look for, what to avoid, and how to manage my natural wish to know as much as possible.

The following are suggestions to help others faced with a cancer diagnosis.

Google wisely. Google (and Wikipedia) are a reflex. Don’t fight it. However, when looking at suggested links, go for more reliable sources. Any national cancer (e.g. American Cancer Society, Canadian Cancer Society) or health agency (e.g., National Cancer Institute), major cancer centre (e.g., MD Anderson and others), and any specific cancer organization (in my case, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and LLS Canada).

Be forewarned, for more aggressive cancers, this will be frightening reading.

Ask your medical team. I didn’t at first but learned better. When I saw my first hematologist, he warned me that web information was out of date and, breezily (almost too much so!), reassured me that better treatments were available. But I didn’t press him on which site he would recommend. Another time with a family member undergoing thankfully what proved to be a false cancer scare, I did – and was referred to the kind of sites referred to earlier.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) – there are no miracles. Invariably, you will find sites that promise alternative cancer treatments. Don’t get sucked into false hopes at best, or be preyed upon for money in the worst.

While I believe in complementary approaches to conventional treatments, these are the tried and true advice for everyone: avoid tobacco, eat well (including reducing meat consumption – other nutrition advice here), and exercise.

Prayer, meditation, walking, being with family and friends are also sound elements of a holistic approach.

Explore, within limits, community forums. There is a risk of losing yourself in these forums. However, they are incredibly powerful in connecting you with people who have gone through the same treatment.

While I started late – because in some cases, it was depressing – I now ask about side effects that I am not sure about, and give back to people who are at earlier stages by sharing my experience. Start with a forum that deals with your type of cancer first, as it is likely to have the largest number of others in your situation (for Canadians, the US forums are larger than in Canada so I tend to go with those).

There is also the emergence of some private cancer forums, which have some good logging tools. However, on privacy grounds, I am more comfortable with charitable organizations.

Get efficient with Google Reader. I started off checking individual sites, forums and blogs. Very inefficient. Set up Google Reader (part of your Google account) and set up search terms to capture news stories, blogs and forum updates automatically. You can then scan them quickly and read those of interest.

Lastly, a note of humility. No matter how much one reads, and how well informed, one will never have the knowledge and experience of your medical team. Set your objectives:

• understand your cancer and treatment better
• be prepared to ask good questions
• develop a comfort level in assessing different treatment options
• be able to “challenge” your medical team if appropriate (e.g., whether I needed to have more or less scans, colonoscopy etc. – small stuff in the bigger scheme but nevertheless made my journey more bearable)

Andrew Griffith is a cancer survivor who blogs at My Lymphoma Journey.  He can be reached on Twitter @lymphomajourney.

 

 

Related Resources

• Cancer (MedlinePlus) - links to overviews, basic information, health check tools, videos, tutorials, research, directories, organizations, patient handouts, and more
• US National Cancer Institute  “… conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.”
• KidsHealth - Click on Parents, Teens, or Children. Search either through the search box or selecting topic in left column.
• Webicina- Cancer , information via social media sites

• Evaluating Health Information  – links to a few great articles and Web sites (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
• Patients want to understand the medical literature (with links to resources for patients) (jflahiff.wordpress.com)

 

 

 

Related articles

 

• Pairing ‘angels’ with cancer patients (cnn.com)
• Patients Receive Encouragement From Past Survivors (wibw.com)

 

New Style and New Content for ClinicalTrials.gov

From the US National Library of Medicine August 2012 press release

ClinicalTrials.gov is the NLM-developed Web-based registry and results database of clinical research studies. The Web site provides patients, clinicians, researchers, and the public with access to information about interventional and observational studies. As of August 2012, ClinicalTrials.gov contained over 130,000 clinical research studies in all fifty states and in 179 countries.

On August 13, 2012, visitors to the ClinicalTrials.gov Web site and the accompanying Protocol Registration System (PRS) Information Web site (designed for data providers) saw a link to a beta site including a new integrated homepage and updated graphic design for the site (http://clinicaltrials.gov/beta/).

Visitors will also have access to new and reorganized written content about clinical research, background information about the site, searching for studies, and maintaining study records.

However, core functions of the site — including the basic and advanced search, search results options, and the study record data – will remain the same. The new site interface will run in parallel with the previous version for approximately four weeks after launch. After appropriate testing and additional minor changes it will permanently replace the previous interface.

The New Homepage

The homepage (see Figure 1) showcases the study search options and search help resources in one location, the “Search for Studies” area. Site visitors can begin a basic search here, go to the advanced search form, or begin browsing for studies by topic or on a world map. Site visitors can also get help with searching, finding studies with summary results posted on ClinicalTrials.gov, and reading study records.

A new menu bar provides direct access to each area of content on the site (See Navigating the Site). Custom views of this content have been created for different user groups. Patients and families, researchers, and study record managers are three significant groups that visit ClinicalTrials.gov. The homepage areas for these audiences provide an introduction to content for each user group, and the “Learn more” link in each area goes to an orientation page that highlights relevant resources on the site. For example, study record managers can find out which clinical trials should be registered with ClinicalTrials.gov and get help with setting up accounts, registering studies and updating records. Members of the press also have a new page with background information and statistics about the site (see the “Media/Press Resources” page under “About Us” in the menu bar).

Data about the site are highlighted in the right column of the homepage. Users can access “Trends, charts, and maps” content for more statistics. An enhanced Glossary provides descriptions of clinical research terms commonly used on ClinicalTrials.gov and “Using our RSS Feeds” explains how to get notification of new and updated study records.

Figure 1: New ClinicalTrials.gov homepage.

 

Please click here for more figures on how to

• How to search for clinical trials
• How to find information on study records (clinical trial sites and study organizers)
• How to find selected outreach and scholarly publications related to ClinicalTrials.gov and clinical research

Related articles

• New Look and Content for ClinicalTrials.gov (hslnews.wordpress.com)
• Clinical trials often fall short: US study (news.com.au)
• Global Clinical Trials: Preferred CRO Partnerships, 1-2 October 2012, Philadelphia, PA (medicalnewstoday.com)

Red Yeast Rice: An Introduction (A Fact Sheet from NCCAM)

Excerpts from Red Yeast Rice backgrounder Web page (US National Center for Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

Red yeast rice is a traditional Chinese culinary and medicinal product. In the United States, dietary supplements containing red yeast rice have been marketed to help lower blood levels of cholesterol and related lipids. Red yeast rice products may not be safe; some may have the same side effects as certain cholesterol-lowering drugs, and some may contain a potentially harmful contaminant. This fact sheet provides basic information about red yeast rice, summarizes scientific research on effectiveness and safety, discusses the legal status of red yeast rice, and suggests sources for additional information.

Key Points

• Some red yeast rice products contain substantial amounts of monacolin K, which is chemically identical to the active ingredient in the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin. These products may lower blood cholesterol levels and can cause the same types of side effects and drug interactions as lovastatin.
• Other red yeast rice products contain little or no monacolin K. It is not known whether these products have any effect on blood cholesterol levels.
• Consumers have no way of knowing how much monacolin K is present in most red yeast rice products. The labels on these products usually state only the amount of red yeast rice that they contain, not the amount of monacolin K.

….

Safety

• The same types of side effects that can occur in patients taking lovastatin as a drug can also occur in patients who take red yeast rice products that contain monacolin K. Potential side effects include myopathy (muscle symptoms such as pain and weakness), rhabdomyolysis (a condition in which muscle fibers break down, releasing substances into the bloodstream that can harm the kidneys), and liver toxicity. Each of these three side effects has been reported in people who were taking red yeast rice.
• Red yeast rice supplements should not be used while pregnant or breastfeeding.
• Lovastatin can interact with a variety of drugs to increase the risk of rhabdomyolysis; these drugs include other cholesterol-lowering agents, certain antibiotics, the antidepressant nefazodone, drugs used to treat fungal infections, and drugs used to treat HIV infection. Red yeast rice containing monacolin K could interact with drugs in the same way.
• If the process of culturing red yeast rice is not carefully controlled, a substance called citrinin can form. Citrinin has been shown to cause kidney failure in experimental animals and genetic damage in human cells. In a 2011 analysis of red yeast rice products sold as dietary supplements, 4 of 11 products were found to contain this contaminant.

….

Legal Status of Red Yeast Rice

In 1998, the FDA determined that a red yeast rice product that contained a substantial amount of monacolin K was an unapproved new drug, not a dietary supplement. On several occasions since then, the FDA has taken action against companies selling red yeast rice products that contain more than trace amounts of monacolin K, warning them that it is against the law to market these products as dietary supplements.

The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) includes the section Herbs at a Glance.

This  series of fact sheets that provides basic information about specific herbs or botanicals—common names, uses, potential side effects, and resources for more information.

Related Resources

Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information 

Learn about your prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines. Includes side effects, dosage, special precautions, and more.

Browse dietary supplements and herbal remedies to learn about their effectiveness, usual dosage, and drug interactions.

Dietary Supplements Labels Database 

Information about label ingredients in more than 6,000 selected brands of dietary supplements. It enables users to compare label ingredients in different brands. Information is also provided on the “structure/function” claims made by manufacturers.

These claims by manufacturers have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Companies may not market as dietary supplements any products that are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Longwood Herbal Task Force
This site has in-depth monographs about herbal products and supplements written by health professionals and students. It provides clinical information summaries, patient fact sheets, and information about toxicity and interactions as well as relevant links. The task force is a cooperative effort of the staff and students from Children’s Hospital, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Related articles

• Beware of Red Yeast Rice (travelwithsandra.wordpress.com)
• Side Effects of Cholesterol-Lowering Treatments (everydayhealth.com)

Haz-Map (occupational health database) redesigned for web and mobile versions

 

From a recent email from NLM (US National Library of Medicine)

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) has released redesigned web and mobile versions of Haz-Map (http://hazmap.nlm.nih.gov/ ). The new design adapts to web browsers on desktop computers, laptops, and tablets, as well as mobile browsers on smart phones, such as iPhones, Android and Blackberry phones.

Haz-Map is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work.  Haz-Map links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It currently covers over 5997 chemical and biological agents and 235 occupational diseases.

More information can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/hazmap.html

Related articles

• OSHA Introduces Seven New Hazardous Material Icons (smartsign.com)
• i can haz wi-fi? (niiteiko.wordpress.com)
• Recognizing chemical hazards (C&ENtral Science) (cenblog.org)
• HazMasterG3 Only CBRNE/HME System Compatible With Army’s First SmartPhone (prweb.com)
• Update 11:20am Everett Fire Calling in Extra Crews Due to Haz Mat Incident at Everett, WA Boeing plant (myeverettnews.com)