Medical links

I'm exhausted from a long week, and especially from the more than five hours I've spent on department-meeting-related items today, so there aren't going to be any long posts tonight. To keep everyone happy, though, here are a couple of medically related links:

US leads way in medical errors: study

"Patients in the United States reported higher rates of medical errors and more disorganized doctor visits and out-of-pocket costs than people in Canada, Britain and three other developed countries, according to a survey released on Thursday.

"Thirty-four percent of U.S. patients received wrong medication, improper treatment or incorrect or delayed test results during the last two years, the Commonwealth Fund found.

"Thirty percent of Canadian patients reported similar medical errors, followed by 27 percent of those in Australia, 25 percent in New Zealand, 23 percent in Germany and 22 percent in Britain, the health care foundation said.

...

"U.S. patients also stood out for shouldering more medical expenses than those in the other countries. More than half said they did not take their medicines or see a doctor because of costs."

Under-the-skin ID chips move toward U.S. hospitals

"The Federal Drug Administration issued a ruling Tuesday that essentially begins a final review process that will determine whether hospitals can use RFID systems from the Palm Beach, Fla.-based company to identify patients and/or permit relevant hospital staff to access medical records, said Angela Fulcher, vice president of marketing and sales at VeriChip.

"VeriChip sells 11-millimeter RFID tags that get implanted in the fatty tissue below the right tricep. When near one of Verichip's scanners, the chip wakes up and radios an ID number to the scanner."