Why healthcare costs so much
Posted by Charles II on January 4, 2008
Robin Harris of ZDNet:
Less than 3 weeks ago I wrote about a simple storage device that saved 1500+ lives and over $175,000,000 in just a couple of hundred hospitals out of 3700 nationwide.
Now the Feds have ordered the program halted. Read on to learn what you can do to help.
The technology: printed paper checklists of the proper steps for common intensive care unit (ICU) procedures like inserting catheters. Nationwide some 4% of ICU catheters get infected resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and billions in added expenses for heroic care efforts. The checklists reduced infection rates to 0%.
Bureaucracy inaction
In a mind-numbing display of bureaucratic reasoning, Kristina C. Borror, Ph.D., Director, Division of Compliance Oversight in the Office for Human Research Protections of the Department of Health & Human Services, ordered the life-saving practices halted.
Why, you ask? According to Ms. Borror and the OHRP asking doctors to perform procedures according to best practices
. . . represented non-exempt human subjects research that was conducted without appropriate IRB [institutional review board] review and approval . . .
Phoenix Woman said
Un. Real.