CLINICAL NEWS
Data Stream
When the Doctor’s Away...
Patients Will Be Okay?
69.4%
vs.
59.1%
When cardiologists were away at medical conferences,
rates of 30-day mortality in cardiac arrest patients dropped
to 59.1 percent – versus 69.4 percent during the days before
and after the conferences. Is this an added benefit of
professional meetings? Not quite - the authors of the study
suggest that the difference in death rates may be attributed in part to overly aggressive treatments, such as an
unnecessary stent placement.
Source: Jena AB, et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2014 December 22. [Epub ahead of
print]
A Healthy Progress Report:
Hospitals Getting Safer
17%
Generic Drugs at Name-Brand Prices!
5,000,000
3,957,200
4,000,000
4,757,000
The broad-spectrum antibiotic doxycycline experienced a
56-fold increase in price from November 2012 to November
2013. In response to these astronomical hikes in price, both
the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Justice have begun investigations into generic drug pricing. “Generic drugs
were meant to help make medications affordable for the
millions of Americans who rely on prescriptions to manage
their health needs,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman
of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and
Aging. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of these enormous
price increases.”
From 2010 to 2013, the Department of Health and Human
Services estimates that hospital patients experienced 1.3
million fewer hospital-acquired conditions - translating to a
17 percent decline.
HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED CONDITIONS
0.06 to
$3.36 per pill
$
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
Source: The Wall Street Journal
0
2010
2013
The progress report also showed that, in 2013 alone, there
were almost 35,000 fewer in-hospital patient