Infections in US hospitals kill 48,000, cost billions: study

The cost of emergency care in the US may be more than two times higher than previously published estimates, a new study suggests.

Medication errors are occurring frequently on pediatric wards, with “devastating” impact on children and their families, concludes a new survey of Canadian hospitals that found four deaths over the three-month span studied, and an average of 20 drug-administration mistakes per hospital ward.

The goal: Cut costs and save lives by preventing hospital-related infections from taking root.

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Turning upside down the conventional notions of blood as the ultimate gift of life, a growing number of Canadian hospitals are trying hard to avoid giving people transfusions, a “paradigm shift” they say is getting surgery patients home sooner, saving the health-care system millions and staving off potential blood shortages.

The same cholesterol-lowering statins taken by tens of millions worldwide to prevent cardiovascular disease may help fend off infections as well, new studies have found.Authors of the research agreed more investigation was needed to say for sure whether statins best known for their interaction with cholesterol could be recommended as a treatment for infections such as pneumonia, sepsis or blood infections secondary to organ transplants.

Financially better-off individuals seeking a family doctor appear more likely to get an appointment than those who are poor, even though Canada’s universal health system offers no monetary incentive for cherry-picking patients, a study suggests. The study found that individuals who called a physician’s office asking to be seen as a new patient were more than 50 per cent more likely to get an appointment if they presented themselves as having a well-paying job.