Healthcare Update Satellite — 09-08-2014

Think a patient is faking alcohol withdrawal tremors? Yeah. There’s an app for that. Canadian researchers develop app that uses iPod’s built-in accelerometer to determine whether or not tremors are more than seven cycles per second. 75% of true alcohol withdrawal tremors have rates faster than that. Only one in six volunteers could fake tremors that fast. Malpractice fees in British Columbia set to double. Physicians pay anywhere from $2,000 (for family physicians) to $20,000 (for obstetricians) in a defense fund every year in order to offset the costs of malpractice defense. The reserve requirements for the fund have doubled in the past year, which means that the fees will likely double as well. Median payouts to malpractice plaintiffs was $161,000 while the median costs for malpractice defense was $43,000. Speaking about British Columbia, a 20 year old woman goes to a local emergency department with back pain. Gets a muscle relaxant to treat her back pain and her back pain resolved about 6-8 hours later … when she delivered her baby. While in the emergency department, she gave a urine sample which showed she was pregnant. Doctors then performed an ultrasound which showed that she had a full term pregnancy and was in labor. The patient had no idea she was pregnant. Mutant cold virus sending hundreds of children to hospitals with respiratory difficulties. At Denver’s Children’s Hospital, more than 900 kids presented with cold symptoms in the past...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs