As some Oregon residents know, sleep deprivation may affect job performance. A new study looks at whether a lack of sleep affects a surgeon's performance the next day. Since some health care advocates are calling for regulation requiring a surgeon to disclose to...
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Month: August 2015
Fine line exists between diagnosis and overdiagnosis
As Oregon residents may know, health care professionals use a myriad of tools to arrive at a proper diagnosis. Today, the contents of that tool chest have expanded to include neuroimaging and other sophisticated techniques. Defining disease such a traumatic brain...
Understanding more about MELAS
Oregon residents may benefit from understanding more about the challenges physicians face when attempting to diagnose a unique medical condition like mitochondrial myopathy, lactic acidosis, encephalopathy and stroke-like episodes. Otherwise referred to as MELAS, this...
Electronic fetal monitoring devices may cause harm
In Oregon and around the country, obstetricians often use electronic fetal monitoring devices on pregnant patients. Large-scale trials using continuous EFM were done in the late 1980s, and it became clear that EFM was not lowering risks during birth. More research in...
Can Toyota make hospitals safer?
As patient volumes increase in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, some public hospitals are turning to a surprising source to help them keep pace: Toyota. By adapting the Japanese automaker's production system to health care, hospital administrators have been able...
New test may help doctors diagnose pancreatic cancer sooner
Oregon residents who have or know someone with pancreatic cancer are probably aware of how serious this disease can be. Around 40,000 Americans will die from it in 2015, out of the nearly 50,000 who will be diagnosed with it this year. Patients have better luck if...
Hospitals make efforts to reduce medical malpractice lawsuits
Oregon residents may be surprised to learn that approximately 1 million medical injuries occur each year. Many of these injuries are caused by doctor or hospital negligence or mistakes, and health care facilities across the country are taking proactive steps to reduce...
Recording of surgery proposed
Some patients in Oregon and across the United States may have experienced adverse results following a surgery or other medical procedure. In response, some state legislatures have proposed that patients be able to record their surgeries. They believe that this may...
New standards for patient care at nursing homes
Families in Oregon that have loved ones who are living in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities may be interested to learn about a proposed rule that was recently issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. On July 16, CMS published a set of...