Liposuction Patients Donate Fat to Stem Cell Research at UCLA

This is a good idea, donate the fat for research, why not, as otherwise it’s just disposed of.  The fat is anonymous when donated, in other words there’s nothing that ties a donor to any type of recognition.  BD  Dr. David Stoker is offering Los Angeles liposuction patients the opportunity to be a part of a ground-breaking research opportunity through the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Women and men who have liposuction can choose to donate their excess fat to UCLA's stem cell research center, and help scientists develop a range of treatments for conditions such as diabetes and cancer. "This is an excellent...

Dr. Oz Says “Enough is Enough” As He Volunteered at the CareNow Free Clinic In Los Angeles “Failure of Basic Morality in the US”

The CareNow Free Clinic got off to a rocky start but it looks like Dr. Oz had to be here as a consultant as California did not get the provisions implemented to allow doctors to travel over state lines to volunteer here.  The Medical Board messed up and had over a year to get this set up.  At any rate Dr. Oz was there and he wrote about his experiences with a couple of patients.  “After more than 6,600 people overwhelmed volunteers at a free mobile health clinic in Los Angeles last year, California legislators passed a law making it easier for out-of-state medical personnel to assist with future events. But just over a week...

Microsoft Kinect Effect–Sensors Everywhere Including the Hospital OR- Video

This is a very cool commercial and has a little bit of everything in it with using in many environments.  Earlier this year I met Microsoft/XBOX Corporate VP Ilan Spillinger  at the Israel Conference and heard his fascinating story on how the technology come to Microsoft and how it came across his path a couple of times before it got there.  Check out the part to where the surgeon stop and runs over and looks at his images.  Physical Virtue Solution To Assess and Train Neck Disorders, Microsoft Kinect And More As Shown This Week at the Israel Conference img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('437d4225-d10a-4b58-9210-487dd6a34d00');...

Occupy San Francisco Participant - Denied Coverage for Life Saving Procedure for Cancer–Insurer Said It Was Pre-Existing When She Was 14 Years Old Now Is 18

This is very sad as she is not 18 years old and imagine if she could have had that bone marrow transplant 4 years ago!  This is why the the Occupy movements are there with corporate greed alive and well.  This is a big ethics problem by all means.  ALGORITHM SAYS YOU HAVE A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION She at least has care from the San Francisco Hospital who monitor and give her pain pills.  You may get tired of that word, but I’m here to drill it into your head as to how these decisions are made.  I have written 3 posts about the Killer Algorithms and here’s one that is currently killing a person.  I really didn’t...

Prime Healthcare Responds to Billing Practices–Flawed Data and Algorithms Once Again-Who Got Sold a Bill of Goods as Kaiser, Stanford & Other Hospitals Had a Ton of Kwashiorkor Malnutrition Billings

I kind of like stories like this as it’s yet one more reminder to clean up the math we use today and a good reason to check out the bill software that is sold to both doctors and hospitals.  I’m not a big fan of Prime Healthcare as they buy hospitals on their last leg with no money and cut out a ton of services and create “Cadillac ER” rooms but on this one I think they made their point.  What are these hospital buying today for risk assessments?  The EHR gets certified but not the rest of it. Bad Algorithms in Healthcare Payment Systems and Risk Assessments–Did the Hospital Bill Fraudulently or Were They Sold Formulas That Did...

Challenging the Surrogate - Daniel Sanger Hearing on Nov. 2

Maryland resident Daniel Sanger has been hospitalized since suffering brain damage after a heart attack in July. For the past month, he has been at Frederick Memorial Hospital, where he receives food and water intravenously.  A week ago today, hospital staff members removed his feeding tube with the permission of Sanger's wife, Leta Sanger.  (Frederick News-Post)But Daniel Sanger's mother and brother challenged that decision.  Phyllis Sanger filed a motion for an emergency injunction, asking for the tube to remain and for her and son Mark Sanger to be granted temporary custody.  On Wednesday, Chief Judge Peter Krauser of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ordered the tube be restored pending the outcome of Thursday's hearing....

Practical Guide to End-of-Life Care in ICU

On this blog and in my law, medical, and bioethics journal articles, I usually focus on legal and policy issues concerning end-of-life treatment.  In my airplane reading, yesterday, I read a nice article that has a different, more practical and bedside focus.  In "End-of-Life Care in ICU: A Practical Guide" (in the Sept/Oct J. Intensive Med) , Irene Spinello provides: (1) a review of key concepts, (2) seven rules of communication, and (3) three steps for removing life-sustaining measur...

Arizona Pain Specialists First US Pain Clinic To Begin Stem Cell Clinical Trials To Regenerate Deteriorating Discs To Reverse Damage to the Spine & Relieve Back Pain

Back in June of this year the FDA approved the trial to treat chronic lower back pain with stem cells.  Mesoblast is sponsoring the trial and the company is located in Australia.   Mesoblast Gets FDA Approval to Begin Advanced Clinical Trials Using Stem Cells to Treat Chronic Lower Back Pain  Mesoblast in September was given European approval for another clinical trial for treating major heart attack victims. Europe Gives Mesoblast Approval for Clinical Trials of “Off the Shelf” Stem Cell Treatments for Major Heart Attack Victims The team at Arizona Pain Specialists (http://www.arizonapain.com) has been selected for...

Hawaii Medical Center Searching for Buyers–If Not Center Could Close As Early as November-Only Hospital in the State Capable of Performing Transplant Surgeries

The center is aggressively looking for a buyer to keep the doors open.  If a buyer is not found they could begin moving patients to other facilities in November.  The hospital is also turning to the government for potential help with emergency actions.  The hospital has already gone bankrupt and there is too much debt so the reorganization won’t work.  BD HONOLULU -- Hawaii Medical Center West treats a population stretching across Leeward Oahu and the Ewa plain, with patients also traveling to HMC East in Liliha. The financially ailing hospitals are aggressively looking for a buyer to take over from Saint Francis Healthcare...

United HealthCare in New York to Disclose More Data Used to Justify Premium Increases–But You Can Almost Bet We Won’t See the Algorithms That Create the Data

This is getting to be such a hot topic today as you can no longer 100% rely on math to prove accuracy as with algorithmic formulas it can be marketed, flawed, you name it.  This is great that consumers will have additional access but think of the marketing too, it’s done to help them have consumers feel that they somehow deserve and needs these increases.  The marketeers of the web are getting smarter all the time.  Even in the financial industry, people want to see those algorithms to find out how reports and analytics are calculated and this for good reason as you can’t touch, see or feel one of them, much less talk to one...

Brooklyn Hospital Sells Off Its HMO To Amerigroup –They Need the Money for Health IT Updates and Pensions–All Four Brooklyn Hospitals Could Face Bankruptcy

Is this Health IT expense going to burst one day?  Time will tell but we have the sale again of yet another HMO and they need the money to keep the doors open so the Medicaid HMO was sold for $85 million.  In addition the state is looking to figure out how to handle the 4 Brooklyn hospitals that are in the red, fix the finances somehow or let all go bankrupts.  Smaller HMOs are being acquired by larger HMOs in the US, either than or they are being bought by insurance companies.  We had one large purchase as such in Orange county California not too long ago.  It’s funny how we keep hearing on the other side of the coin...

California Stem Cell Company in Irvine Takes Over Cancer Program Developed at Hoag Hospital in Orange County For Treating Skin Cancer

The company is focused on working with stem cells and also has another division that creates tools for predictive toxicology screening, in other words drug screening.  The company also has partnerships with Johns Hopkins, UC Irvine and a few other healthcare organizations.  “California Stem Cell (CSC) is a privately held company focused on the manufacture of high-purity human cells for therapeutic development and clinical application.  CSC is currently developing stem cell based therapies for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease).” This particular treatment seeks out the...

Xigris Drug for Treatment of Sepsis Being Withdrawn the Market–Failure to Show Survival Benefits

The results of a clinical trial showed the results compared to the use of a placebo and benefits were not attained.  It is the only drug on the market to treat Sepsis in this manner.  The drug was approved back in 2001 so it has been around for a while and thus I’m sure many were given the drug. All treatments currently being given to patients should be halted and the product returned to where it was purchased and no new patients should be given the drug.  I have to agree with another blogger, the Happy Hospitalist on his statement below:  BD “I would personally like to take this opportunity to request the FDA and Eli Lilly...

Nurses And Other Healthcare Professionals Occupy Wall Street With Make Shift Clinic

The protesters are now getting help from professionals that have set up a clinic to help the protesters with common medical needs/ailments.  Back in June of this year the nurses also held their own demonstration on Wall Street.  Nurses Demonstrate on Wall Street Discussing Wages, Working Conditions - Addressing the Sad State of Healthcare Created by Financial Greed (Video) In addition there are plans to target the health care industry as it has been an algorithm risk assessment payment business that is not always fair.  As far as what I have also read, the tent is pretty well stocked with donations coming in from all over the...

Forthcoming New Primer on Medical Futility

I just got the page proofs for my chapter on “Medical Futility," chapter 12, in Guidance for Hospital Ethics Committees forthcoming from Cambridge University Press (D. Micah Hester and Toby Schonfeld, editors).  My chapter, like the rest of the volume, is written to an audience of new, “inexperienced” members of an ethics committee.  This book will surely prove to be even more valuable than Hester's last guide for hospital ethics committees.  After reading my  chapter, the reader will be able to:Describe the three main definitions of “medical futility.” Identify the key factors at the heart of disagreements between surrogates and providers concerning whether a treatment is beneficial.Distinguish six strategies that ethics committees can use to prevent and to resolve...

New Bioethics Blog

Stephen Latham at Yale has a new bioethics blog.  It is not limited to end-of-life issues like this one.  But it is a valuable resource, being both superlatively informed yet written in a colloquial, accessible mann...

Cigna Buys HealthSpring Inc For $3.8 Billion, Who Bought Bravo Medicare HMO Who Had Profits of a Billion in 2010-Subsidiary Watch

Here goes another one with Medicare patients being a focus and this is yet one more acquisition to gain more patients from traditional Medicare coverage.  Members have restricted lists of doctors they can see and preventive care is a big part of the program too.  HealthSpring To Pay $545M For Bravo Health Medicare Company With Profits of 1 Billion in 2009-Over 800 Million in 2010 Thus Far In other recent Cigna news from a couple months ago we had this going on and I don’t know if it has been resolved yet.  Currently as it stands, the state of Delaware can demand payment from Cigna if they do not keep employees in Delaware and...

“Attack of the Killer Algorithms” Part 3–Vatican Doesn’t Like It Either–Occupy Wall Street Belongs in New York As They Don’t Do Code or Algorithms in Washington–Only Find time To Talk Abortions

I don’t care whether you are Catholic or not, I’m not but this is a good statement and coming with recognition from the Vatican, it’s time to take note.  I have been writing about the bad of use of code and flawed data and poignant algorithms and its living among us.  The is the sheer frustration of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  How do you do battle with an element you can’t see, you can’t touch and you can’t talk to it.  They are doing what they can as humans and we all live with the unethical use of math today and financial formulas, so in essence they represent all of use.   Here’s a guy the SEC caught with using...

Clinical Ethics Conference - Albany, NY (Nov. 18, 2011)

I will be speaking at the 2011 AMBI Clinical Ethics Conference on November 18, 2011.  It will focus on the role and function of hospital ethics committees.  Here is the agenda:7:45-8:25am     Registration, Continental Breakfast8:25-8:30am     Welcome, Introductions  Bruce D. White, DO, JD8:30-9:30am     Ethics Committee Operation and Function: Current Challenges                             Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD9:30-9:45am     Break9:45-10:40am    Exceptional Families and How Ethics Committee and Nursing Champions Can                               Make a Difference Charlene...

Getting a Flu Shot Becoming Complicated–That Is If You Are Trying to Avoid Needles–You Can Snort Your Vaccine Instead

Painless needle free flu shots, the FDA says they may not work due to the fact that they have not approved “injector devices” for the shot.  If you got one of these from a drug store or elsewhere, you might need another one.  Pharmajet, the company who makes the device has FDA approval to use for delivery of other drugs, but apparently it’s not a delivery method for flu shots.  There could be something to this as a vaccine has different properties and is not like an antibiotic in the way it reacts as one simple example.  Kroger doesn’t know what to do now and is looking to the FDA, can we do it or not with flu shots. ...