News in brief - June 28, 2004

MSNJ seeks profile extension - Mass. residents worry about liability crisis - Heart surgeon to lead Cleveland Clinic - Boston patients wait the longest for doctor appointments - Pediatric errors cost lives, money

MSNJ seeks profile extension

The Medical Society of New Jersey in June petitioned the state Division of Consumer Affairs to extend the time that physicians have to verify information set to be published June 23 on a new state-run physician profile Web site. MSNJ says there is a great chance that false information could be published about doctors.

MSNJ said it logged complaints from nearly 200 physicians. Some physicians said they had trouble getting into the state's Web site to verify their information, and others said they encountered problems trying to correct false data.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled that the state can go forward with plans to create physician profiles and make the information available to the public. Profiles, available beginning June 23, will include where physicians went to school, medical malpractice payments, criminal convictions, hospital and health care facility privilege restrictions and revocations and disciplinary actions.

The MSNJ filed a lawsuit challenging the 2003 New Jersey Health Care Consumer Information Act that called for the state to make the information available to the public. MSNJ argued that the law was unconstitutional because releasing confidential settlement information conflicts with federal laws that prohibit state legislation from interfering with contracts between private individuals.

Mass. residents worry about liability crisis

Among 400 Massachusetts voters recently surveyed, 73% said they believe medical liability insurance continues to be a major problem or crisis. In addition, 85% said they would support legislation that assessed medical malpractice damages based on each person's level of responsibility.

The poll also found:

92% believe medical doctors are important to the state's economy.
69% favor limits on noneconomic damages when patients are fully compensated for economic damages.
66% believe physicians are leaving Massachusetts because the work environment for them is a serious or very serious problem.
62% believe doctors' medical liability insurance premiums are too high.
57% believe patients bring too many lawsuits against physicians.

The McCormack School at the University of Massachusetts-Boston's survey has a plus or minus 5% error, with a 95% confidence level.

At press time, Massachusetts was one of 25 states the American Medical Association lists as showing signs of a medical liability insurance crisis.

Heart surgeon to lead Cleveland Clinic

Internationally renowned heart surgeon Delos M. Cosgrove, MD, has been appointed new chief executive officer and chair of the board of governors of The Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Cosgrove, 63, will start his duties after a transition period spent working with current CEO Floyd D. Loop, MD. Dr. Cosgrove joined The Cleveland Clinic in 1975, and currently serves as chair of the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Va., and completed his clinical training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, and Brook General Hospital in London.

During his career, he has performed more than 18,000 surgical procedures and has become a world-renowned expert in the field of heart valve repair. He was a surgeon in the U.S. Air Force and served in Da Nang, Republic of Vietnam, as chief of U.S. Air Force Casualty Staging Flight. He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Republic of Vietnam Commendation Medal.

Boston patients wait the longest for doctor appointments

Getting a new-patient appointment with a physician in Washington, D.C., is much easier than it is in Boston, according to a survey by Merritt, Hawkins & Associates.

The survey measured wait times for appointments for routine exams in 15 metropolitan areas, focusing on cardiologists, dermatologists, ob-gyns and orthopedic surgeons.

Boston was the most difficult place for new patients to get an appointment, with an average wait of 37 days to see a cardiologist, 50 for a dermatologist, 45 for an ob-gyn and 24 for an orthopedic surgeon.

Though Boston is home to several academic medical centers, which produce a large number of medical residents each year, Merritt, Hawkins said the city may be having a hard time retaining physicians because of the heavy managed care influence in the area and the rising cost of medical liability insurance.

Washington, D.C., however, had the shortest wait times, which Merritt, Hawkins attributed to the high number of physicians there, 718 per 100,000 people. In Washington, the wait for a cardiologist was 12 days, 15 for a dermatologist, 11 for an ob-gyn and 8 for an orthopedic surgeon.

Other cities surveyed were Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego and Seattle.

Pediatric errors cost lives, money

The rate of medical errors among pediatric patients is more than 100 per every 10,000 hospital discharges and these errors led to an extra $1 billion in excess charges and an estimated 4,483 deaths, according to a report published in the June Pediatrics.

In what is considered the first nationwide analysis of child patient safety, researchers analyzed 5.7 million discharge records from the year 2000 for persons 19 and younger from 27 states.

The study included data on teenage mothers giving birth, and the highest rate for "patient safety events" were for obstetric trauma for vaginal birth with instrumentation (2,152 per 10,000 hospital discharges), followed by obstetric trauma for vaginal birth without instrumentation (1,072 per 10,000 discharges). In contrast, there were only 37 obstetric traumas related to cesarean sections per 10,000 discharges.

Other significant findings of the study, which was funded by the U.S. Agency for Health Research and Quality, included: patient safety events were "significantly more likely" to occur for children covered by Medicaid and that birth trauma was "significantly less likely" to occur in teaching hospital.