News in brief - July 4, 2005

Mass. Medical Society says state faces physician shortage - Illinois to post health care prices - Autopsy report said Schiavo had massive brain damage, blindness

Mass. Medical Society says state faces physician shortage

The Massachusetts Medical Society says the state is short on physicians. Using four years of survey data from 2002 through 2005, the MMS cited anesthesiology, neurosurgery and radiology as fields facing the most critical shortages, with half of doctors surveyed in these fields consistently indicating that they've experienced extreme difficulties recruiting and retaining physicians over the past four years.

Cardiology, gastroenterology and orthopedics were categorized as having severe shortages, while general surgery, internal medicine, psychiatry, vascular surgery, emergency medicine and ob-gyn labor markets were considered under stress.

In the 2005 survey, the wait time for existing patients for all specialties averaged 15.3 days, and new patients across all specialties waited an average of 26.2 days. Internal medicine had the longest average wait time of 47 days for new patients.

Illinois to post health care prices

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the "Illinois Health Care Consumer's Right-to-Know" bill June 15, making health care pricing and information on facilities' outpatient procedural performances public.

"Consumers have a right to know how much medical procedures cost and how much experience medical facilities have in performing the procedures," Blagojevich said in a statement. "With this new law, the people of Illinois will be able to make better-informed decisions about their health care."

The new law requires the Illinois Dept. of Public Health to post average charges for 30 outpatient procedures, along with the number of times annually each facility performs these procedures. The law builds on an existing law requiring the department to publish inpatient hospital price and performance information on its Web site.

"It is important that information be obtained on all surgeries to get a more accurate picture of this component of health care," said Eric E. Whitaker, MD, MPH, state public health director. "When making this information public, it's also important that we protect the rights of patients. This bill ensures privacy laws are enforced to prevent disclosure of any personal information that would identify an individual patient."

Illinois is now one of nine states giving performance and fee data from hospitals and medical centers to consumers.

Autopsy report said Schiavo had massive brain damage, blindness

An autopsy report showed that Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who was in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, had irreversible brain damage and was blind. Schiavo, whose case fueled a national debate about living wills and advance directives, died March 31 of dehydration, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.

The autopsy report, released June 15 by the Pinellas-Pasco County (Fla.) Medical Examiner, said Schiavo's brain weight was about half of the expected weight for a woman her age. It found no signs that Schiavo was strangled or abused before she collapsed in 1990.

Medical examiners said there was no proof that she had an eating disorder and they could not say for certain what caused her to collapse.