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Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

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Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#211

Post by chiefalchemist »

nradov wrote: post #201
chiefalchemist wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we don't even start to try? That's not a good enough reason. Given the social and financial magnitude the excuse is nearly criminal.

It's always disappointing to see comments like this on HN by arrogant, ignorant technologists who haven't done their homework and fail to understand the complexities of healthcare delivery. Biology is a lot harder than software or engineering. There are many researchers working in this area but outside of a few limited areas they haven't succeeded in creating models that are useful for assessing the quality of indivi…

To clarify: We're talking about an industry that only (relatively) recently realized ubiquitous hand santizers was a good idea. And then took additional time to motivated / train staff to use them. Let's keep this in mind.

Suggesting what is available be tracked isn't ignorance, it's innovation and improvement 101. It's a call to prevent waste and unlock societal value. To suggest otherwise is lazy and insanity.

Or perhaps the industry is afraid of something? Fear makes for great excuses.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#212

Post by EvanAnderson »

nradov wrote: post #144
willcipriano wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't behave like a cartel if you don't want to be called one. From limiting residency slots, making it nearly impossible to hire foreign doctors and lobbying for safe medications that are sold over the counter in the rest of the world to be sold as prescription only in the US. Just to name a few, the AMA has served it's members well to the detriment of anyone buying healthcare in the United States. That to me is a c…

Please stop spreading misinformation. The AMA doesn't limit residency slots. They have been actively lobbying Congress to increase residency slots, and have even put their own money into it. https://www.ama-assn.org/education/accelerating-change-medic...

The AMA (and other medical trade groups) lobbied to limit residency slots back in the 90s. We're still feeling the effects of that in the market today.

Rather than copy / paste a comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30108269

Edit: Funny enough I was replying to you back then too. Small world.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#213

Post by renewiltord »

rscho wrote: post #179
renewiltord wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of reasons why it is not easy to determine surgeon performance but it's not impossible. I'll let you make some quick inferences using this video https://www.nejm.org/do/10.1056/NEJMdo004274/full/?requestTy... from this paper https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1300625 Crucially, if you can get someone to hide which surgeon is skillful and which one is not and view the video and judge for yourse…

From everyday work experience, I strongly believe people to be totally unable to fairly assess a surgeon in an everyday clinical context. Looks, manners and personal sympathies are the main drivers for that kind of judgment. I know a surgeon with a substantial rate of spectacular failure and a very bad reputation. But most of the time, outcomes are excellent. Is that a bad surgeon on average? No idea. And Im in the O…

FWIW, in this respect, I'm just relaying from my parents: dad's an ortho trauma surgeon who now runs a trauma department, and mum's an ophthal surgeon. As much as I'd like to claim I'm casually reading the NEJM every day, I've only ever read papers they share with me, which they do at an annoying frequency considering I'm in trading.

I assume the general silent belief would be that your guy with the spectacular failure is some kind of "take the tough cases" dude?

By the way, when I was much younger (maybe 10-15 years ago), I recall my dad coming back from an AO Foundation conference where there was a talk about some particular procedure in some Scandinavian country where the range of outcome quality was so high for a particular non-emergency THR/TKR or something like that and so they shut down the procedure in the remote hospitals and centralized it in a few (3?) tertiary healthcare centres. Do you recall something like that? I have this memory in my head but I can't find the original material. The story is so good: EBM driving patient outcomes; but I can't find it so I don't share it and I would like very much to, if it is true.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#214

Post by colpabar »

dontbenebby wrote: post #200
permo-w wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what does this mean

It means that someone would say I am "pre med" as in, they are sure they will one day be a medical doctor. However, not only is that not guaranteed -- you need to do a standardized test called the MCAT, as well as a number of other things. Further, while at many universities there is a defined "pre-med" major, there is no such major at the University of Pittsburgh, where I obtained my BS. So if someone who is a Pitt…

I think it's a huge stretch to assume that anyone who simplifies "I am taking all the required courses to position myself to do well on the MCAT and go to med school" with "I'm premed" has a personality disorder. Also, maybe they stopped interacting because what you said is just kind of rude? People really hate it when you "get them" on technicalities.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#215

Post by synu »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #196
synu wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like somehow the people who complain they have been silenced are always the loudest these days.

It seems like the bullies and censors and corporatist bootlickers are still far louder. It's great if you're hearing them being called out by those speaking their truth to power though.

Running into people who disagree with you or think you are kind of dumb or call you names isn’t really the same as being silenced.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#216

Post by 93po »

sschueller wrote: post #35
DicIfTEx wrote: post #20

And a sizeable portion of that medical error is due to poor device UX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJbwN6EZ4I

Thank you Tesla for replacing hardware buttons with menu driven touch screens and autopilot that will drive you home safely. Additionally thank you for causing such a hype that other car manufacturers feel like they missed the boat and are copying these brilliant features. /s

Thank you for bringing up Elon in situations that are completely unrelated. There isn't enough attention on him already /s

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#217

Post by jodrellblank »

KineticLensman wrote: post #168
jodrellblank wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " No amount of credible technological advancement would have saved me then. " Assuming there was a cause of your fibrillation; maybe advancement in imaging and detection could have spotted worsening rhythm or small damage developing in the heart, or growing chemical imbalance in time before it happened, and given you an Implantable defibrillator[1] in advance, or a hypothetical wearable one, or treatment to repair…

> maybe advancement in imaging and detection could have spotted It's possible that I have hidden Long QT syndrome [0]. Mine can be detected following drug provocation using adrenaline but under normal conditions it doesn't show on my ECG. It is undetectable on MRI or angiograms because it is electrochemical rather than mechanical in nature. There are emerging genetic tests that can pick up some of the possible congen…

It was the "credible technological advancement" I was going for.

"We can't do it today", I don't dispute.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#218

Post by rscho »

renewiltord wrote: post #213
rscho wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From everyday work experience, I strongly believe people to be totally unable to fairly assess a surgeon in an everyday clinical context. Looks, manners and personal sympathies are the main drivers for that kind of judgment. I know a surgeon with a substantial rate of spectacular failure and a very bad reputation. But most of the time, outcomes are excellent. Is that a bad surgeon on average? No idea. And Im in the O…

FWIW, in this respect, I'm just relaying from my parents: dad's an ortho trauma surgeon who now runs a trauma department, and mum's an ophthal surgeon. As much as I'd like to claim I'm casually reading the NEJM every day, I've only ever read papers they share with me, which they do at an annoying frequency considering I'm in trading. I assume the general silent belief would be that your guy with the spectacular failu…

> I assume the general silent belief would be that your guy with the spectacular failure is some kind of "take the tough cases" dude?

No, the silent belief is that he's the worst surgeon we have.

> they shut down the procedure in the remote hospitals and centralized it in a few (3?) tertiary healthcare centres. Do you recall something like that?

That's become an extremely common strategy for specialized surgery throughout Europe.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#219

Post by simonh »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #167
TaupeRanger wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the mistakes led to death that wouldn't have otherwise occurred in a similar timeframe, the anecdotes wouldn't even be relevant.

Medical mistake literally killed my family member by giving her an IV with the wrong drug. She was dead withing 20 minutes.

That’s an appalling tragedy, but nobody here is saying deaths from medical mistakes don’t happen.

Re: Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in U.S. (2016)

#220

Post by spaetzleesser »

nradov wrote: post #197
spaetzleesser wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that they mainly focus on pushing costs to the patient in the form of higher and higher deductibles.

Who is "they"? Medical insurance companies don't really set deductibles. They offer a menu of options to customers (mainly large employers) and let them pick. Insurers are happy to offer plans with zero deductible, but the premiums will be higher. This is all based on actuarial calculations; insurers generally don't make any more profit on high-deductible plans. If you think your deductible is too high then complain…

The configuration of your health insurance is negotiated between insurance and employer. It seems pretty obvious that they are setting things up in a way that’s good for them.
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