Study Supports Disclosure of Errors by Medical Professionals A recent study of a major American university health care system has revealed that disclosure of errors to patients does not increase liability costs. The study, published in the August 17, 2010, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, considered 12 years of data from the University of Michigan Health System. Researchers found that average monthly liability costs decreased and resolution times became shorter after UMHS implemented a medical error disclosure program in 2001. Obviously, a frank and expedient ...

A Spate of Recent Gas Explosions Concern Homeowners Across the Country According to data released by the New York Times, in the past five years alone nearly 70 people have been killed and hundreds others injured in natural gas-related explosions. That number includes the more than 50 injuries and seven fatalities resulting from a late-September blast in San Bruno, California. Less than a week later, a similar explosion in Richfield, Minnesota, destroyed one home and damaged others close by. Amazingly, there were no injuries or deaths in the Minnesota explosion, but property ...

Can Governor-Elect Jerry Brown Spark Job Creation? "It's the economy stupid," famously exclaimed by then-presidential hopeful Bill Clinton, seemed to be the rallying cry for most of the nation this last election cycle. With an economy in recession and a stagnate jobless rate throughout the country, many Americans took to the polls hoping to shake things up enough to get back to work. With California's October jobless rate at 12.4 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers, Californians took to the polls with the rest of America, but instead of ...

Controversy in Texas' DNA Sampling Policy Getting arrested in Texas could soon include something more than just a jail cell -- a DNA test. A growing number of law enforcement officials are calling for mandatory DNA testing, which they say would help police with unsolved crimes, particularly violent crimes like sexual assault and murder. Opponents say that mandatory testing violates individual privacy rights, and innocent people could be accused of crimes they did not commit. Twenty states already require DNA testing when someone is arrested. In Texas, a person is ...

Child Outcome-Based Support: Arizona's New Standard? The goal of a child support award is a laudable one: ensure that the separation of a child's parents will not have a significant economic impact upon the child. The hope is that, by forcing the non-custodial parent to supplement the income of the custodial one, the child's standard of living will remain similar to that enjoyed prior to the separation. Nearly every state's child support system is built around the central idea that the child's fiscal interests must be taken into account before that of the parents themselves. Clearly, ...

Teen Accident Deaths on Decline Despite Mobile-Phone Use Motor-vehicle accidents -- not drugs or diseases -- are the leading cause of death for teens in the United States. Despite alcohol, distraction and lack of experience contributing to the causes of accidents for this age group, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently reported a decline in fatal crashes among these youngest drivers. As part of its study, the CDC analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA's) Fatality Analysis Report System (FARS). Reviewing fatality data ...

River Logic, Inc., a leading provider of corporate performance management and predictive modeling software, today announced that Bolthouse Farms, a multi-hundred million dollar a year and multi-national leader in the "healthy choice" segment of the food and beverage industry, has selected Trade Promotion Optimization (TPO) Planner to improve the financial performance of trade investment decisions. "We reviewed a variety of trade promotion planning software offerings and River Logic, in partnership with Synectics Group, distinguished itself as a truly white-space solution ...

Statistics* released today by payday loan company speed-e-loans.com have exposed some of the media myths surrounding this industry, suggesting that the negative press coverage is scare-mongering. MYTH ONE - the payday parasites Despite press articles claiming that payday lenders prey on their customers (with one red top newspaper referring to those in the industry as "payday parasites"), 70% of all payday loans through speed-e-loans are paid back on the date selected when the loan was first taken out. The remaining 30% take advantage of their strict extension ...

Chef Point Cafe is exceedingly thankful to everybody who has helped make it such a tremendous success. Franson and Paula Nwaeze, proprietors of the five-star gourmet restaurant in a gas station, recognize the importance of helping others in their time of need, especially during the Thanksgiving season. As an expression of gratitude to their diners and in recognition of Thanksgiving, the Nwaezes are providing diners the opportunity to help the less fortunate, too. Chef Point will be collecting canned goods and non-perishable food items during November and donating it ...

M&Y Global Services, a leader in Chinese BPO, today issued a new whitepaper that examines China as a BPO destination. The whitepaper, "The Rise of China BPO", highlights China's continued focus to fuel growth in the BPO space and its potential as a leading BPO player amongst other global locations. The whitepaper coincides with the recent visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron with the largest British trade delegation to China in more than 200 years. The visit has boosted bilateral trade with contracts valued at millions of pounds reportedly being signed as a ...

The independent consumer organization, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, announces their list of the Best High-Tech Toys for 2010 on their website www.toyportfolio.com. "The good news for consumers is that the cost of technology is coming down," notes co-founder Joanne Oppenheim. "Toy makers know they need to be competitive this season so we've seen the prices really coming down for the holidays. One of the emerging trends is video camera equipment for every age group. Our list includes everything from a Barbie with a camera to an RC Helicopter that can capture images while ...

Bat Blue Corporation, a provider of end-to-end network and security technologies and services, today announced that it has been named East Region 2010 NextWave Platinum Partner of the Year by Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks' next-generation high-performance firewalls enable unprecedented visibility and granular policy control of applications and content, at up to 10 Gbps. With over 2,200 enterprise clients, Palo Alto Networks has enjoyed consistently high annual growth rates since it first began shipping product in 2007. Bat Blue has been a Palo Alto Networks ...

Plonk Wine Merchants, an Internet-based wine retailer that specializes in selling top-notch, small-production, and obscure wines from around the globe all under $30 per bottle, just announced the launch of its cutting-edge wine club. In addition to shipping wine to its members on a monthly basis, the Plonk Wine Club will feature a series of interactive online wine tastings led by an arsenal of acclaimed winemakers from around the world via live video broadcast. For $89.99 per month, Plonk Wine Club members will receive: - 4 wines per month: 1 bottle of the Plonk ...

The proportion of adult smokers dramatically decreased during the past three decades in at least one metropolitan area — with more quitting and fewer picking up the habit, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. The Minnesota Heart Survey, a population-based, serial cross-sectional study of trends in cardiovascular risk factors, included between 3,000 and 6,000 participants in each of its six surveys. Examining the smoking trends in adults 25 to 74 years old in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area from 1980 ...

Eating smaller amounts of salt each day as a teenager could reduce high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke in adulthood, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Conducting a sophisticated computer modeling analysis, researchers projected the nationwide health effects of a 3-gram reduction in dietary salt from processed foods consumed by adolescent boys and girls. Teenagers eat more salt each day — more than 9 grams (3,800 milligrams of sodium) — than any other age group, researchers said. The American Heart ...

Light to moderate alcohol consumption (about two to three drinks daily) among male coronary artery bypass patients was associated with 25 percent fewer subsequent cardiovascular procedures, heart attacks, strokes and death compared to non-drinkers, in a study presented at the American Heart's Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. However, bypass patients with left ventricular dysfunction who were moderate to heavy drinkers (more than six drinks daily) were twice as likely to have subsequent cardiovascular deaths compared to non-drinkers. "The benefit of light amounts ...

The death of a spouse or child can cause elevated heart rate and other potentially harmful heart rhythm changes among the recently bereaved, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. These changes in how the heart functions — which could increase the risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death — tend to revert back to normal ranges within six months, researchers said. "While the focus at the time of bereavement is naturally directed toward the deceased person, the health and welfare of bereaved survivors should ...

While vitamin D deficiency is associated with fatal stroke among whites, it is not linked to more stroke deaths among blacks, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Analyzing the health records of a nationally representative group of 7,981 black and white adults, researchers found that whites with deficient vitamin D levels had a doubled risk of dying from a stroke compared to whites with higher vitamin D levels. In contrast, researchers found no relationship between fatal strokes and vitamin D deficiency among blacks, ...

Women who report having high job strain have a 40 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and the need for procedures to open blocked arteries, compared to those with low job strain, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. In addition, job insecurity – fear of losing one's job – was associated with risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure, increased cholesterol and excess body weight. However, it'snot directly associated with heart attacks, stroke, invasive ...

A protocol that uses continuous real-time radiation monitoring, low-dose imaging programs and requires physician awareness of radiation dose, significantly reduced radiation exposure during electrophysiology procedures and catheter ablations to diagnose and treat heart arrhythmias in children, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2010. Invasive cardiac electrophysiology is used to diagnose and treat abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, which can range from the benign to the life-threatening. In the study, researchers ...

9:30 a.m. Abstract 14027/P2049 – Cholesterol deposits on eyelids predict higher risk of heart attack, artery disease and death Cholesterol deposits on eyelids, "xanthelasmata," predict risk for heart attack, artery disease and early death, a Danish study found. Because half of the people with the deposits have normal blood cholesterol levels, scientists said the lesions may be an important independent marker of underlying artery disease. Copenhagen researchers established the presence or absence of xanthelasmata at baseline in 12,939 people. Of these, 1,903 developed ...

San Diego - How do you know what to listen to? In the middle of a noisy party, how does a mother suddenly focus on a child's cry, even if it isn't her own? Bridget Queenan, a doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center is turning to mustached bats to help her solve this puzzle. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, Queenan will report that she has found neurons in the brains of bats that seem to "shush" other neurons when relevant communications sounds come in – a process she suggests may be working in ...

San Diego - Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center can now show, using functional MRI images, why it is that behavior in children and young adolescents veers toward the egocentric rather than the introspective. In findings being presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego on November 14, the researchers say that the five scattered regions in the brain that make up the default-mode network (DMN) have not started working in concert in youngsters aged six to nine. These areas light up in an fMRI scan, but not simultaneously. The ...

San Diego - A brain scan with functional MRI (fMRI) is enough to predict which patients with pediatric anxiety disorder will respond to "talk therapy," and so may not need to use psychiatric medication, say neuroscientists from Georgetown University Medical Center. Their study, being presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, showed that children and adolescents, ages 8 to16, who show fear when looking at happy faces on a screen inside an fMRI scanner were those who had least success with an eight-week course of cognitive behavioral ...

A study led by researchers in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine shows unexpected and extensive natural recovery after spinal cord injury in primates. The findings, to be published November 14 in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience, may one day lead to the development of new treatments for patients with spinal cord injuries. While regeneration after severe brain and spinal cord injury is limited, milder injuries are often followed by good functional recovery. To investigate how this occurs, UC San ...