5 Sketchy Things We Still Don’t Know About E-Cigarettes

The FDA has cracked down on e-cigs by asserting its regulatory power and proposing a ban on sales to minors

On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flexed its regulatory muscles and extended its authority over more tobacco products, including the highly debated electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes. In the announcement, the agency said it now has jurisdiction over items that meet the statutory definition of tobacco products—which includes e-cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and hookah tobacco, among others. The FDA says it also plans to crack down on e-cigarettes by proposing a ban of their sale to people under 18 and by requiring health warnings on packaging.

The UK already has stiff regulations on e-cigarettes and some cities in the U.S., like Los Angeles, have bannedthem in several public places. The trouble with e-cigarettes is that they are so new, and there’s not enough evidence to definitively determine either how effective they are at helping people quit smoking—or the health risks associated with inhaling vaporized nicotine. Here are five things we are still scratching our heads over.

> READ FULL ARTICLE to learn about the facts of  electronic cigarettes FROM TIME

Will Medicine Ever Become Safer?

Hello and welcome. I am Dr. George Lundberg and this is At Large at Medscape.

Hospitals are dangerous places. I no longer work in a hospital, and I try never to go to hospitals even to visit, unless, of course, I or my family were to become really sick and would obviously stand to benefit from hospitalization. I feel almost the same about surgicenters, free-standing emergency rooms, and urgent care facilities.

...

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the sentinel report To Err is Human, ^[2] still a best-seller. They pegged the annual number of American hospital deaths secondary to errors and adverse effects of treatment to be 44,000 to 98,000. In an interview earlier this year, I asked Lucian Leape whether that number still held. He said no, it was much larger. I asked whether we had made any progress. He said yes, but only in narrow fields.

In 2013, a new report^[3] in the Journal of Patient Safetyestimated American hospital deaths following adverse events at 210,000 to 440,000 per year. Medicare patients are reported to die at a rate of 180,000 per year from or with nosocomial infections and other medical care-related problems

READ MORE from medscape.com

How to Make an Emergency Department Visit a Safe One

You hope an accident or illness won't send you to an emergency department (ED). But being prepared for such an event can help you get good, timely, and safe care when the need arises.

Unfortunately, U.S. hospital EDs are severely overcrowded. In 2006, America's emergency rooms cared for 120 million patients, according to data from my agency, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). And—because the Nation's health care system still relies on largely paper-based medical records—chances are, if you land in the ED, the doctors won't have information about your medical history.

ED staff won't know what medicines you take or what medical problems you have unless you are able to tell them. Even if you are alert, you're likely to forget important information about your health, such as medicine allergies or your blood type.

Being prepared for a trip to the ED—whether because of an accident or illness—increases your chances of getting safe, high quality health care. It might even save you money, depending on your health plan's policy for ED visits. Know what your health plan policy is. Some health plans require that you get authorization for emergency care other than for life-threatening emergencies.

That's why it's important to have handy, updated, and thorough information at hand. Keeping your information either on paper or in an electronic form, like on your cell phone, may help you receive better, safer care in a medical emergency.

via Navigating the Health Care System: How to Make an Emergency Department Visit a Safe One.

Hospital Safety Score - How Safe Is Your Local Hospital?

The Hospital Safety Score is an A, B, C, D, or F letter grade reflecting how safe hospitals are for patients. For the first time ever, this score empowers you to make informed decisions about the safety of your hospital care.1 in 4 Medicare patients will walk out of a hospital with an issue they didn’t walk in with, many of which are fatal. Some people do more research on what car to buy than what hospital to go to for medical care. The Hospital Safety Score provides data and research to help you make informed decisions about a critical aspect of your hospital stay – safety. A hospital may have the best surgeons and greatest technology in the world, but unless it is preventing infections, and eliminating medical and medication errors and injuries, it is not delivering on a very basic premise: ensuring the safety of you and your loved ones. The goal of the Hospital Safety Score is to reduce the more than 180,000 yearly deaths from hospital errors and injuries by publicly recognizing safety and exposing harm. “Harm” ranges from infections and acquired injuries such as bedsores to medication mix-ups and other errors, some potentially fatal. See your local hospital’s data page for information on the 26 measures that comprise its score.

via Hospital Safety Score - How Safe Is Your Local Hospital?.

FDA.GOV For Consumers - HOW TO FIND RECALLS

In addition to the below features, use the fda.gov site to search for recalls by typing in the search window top right "name recall" where name is the name of a drug or supplement.

Navigate the For Consumers Section

Consumer Updates

Timely and easy-to-read articles covering all FDA activities and regulated products

Protect Yourself

Buying medicines online, health fraud, warnings and enforcement, safety alerts, and reporting problems to FDA

Multi-Media Consumer Information

Videos, photo slide shows, and audio podcasts

Consumer Information by Audience

For seniors, women, patients and patient advocates, parents and caregivers, health educators, students, and kids.

Print Publications

Links to available print publications, information on ordering free copies, and printer-friendly Consumer Update PDFs

via FDA.GOV For Consumers - HOW TO FIND RECALLS.

About Choosing Care Wisely | An Initiative of the ABIM Foundation

Choosing Wisely®

aims to promote conversations between physicians and patients by helping patients choose care that is:

Supported by evidence

Not duplicative of other tests or procedures already received

Free from harm

Truly necessary

In response to this challenge, national organizations representing medical specialists have been asked to “choose wisely” by identifying five tests or procedures commonly used in their field, whose necessity should be questioned and discussed. The resulting lists of “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question” will spark discussion about the need—or lack thereof—for many frequently ordered tests or treatments.

This concept was originally conceived and piloted by the National Physicians Alliance, which, through an ABIM Foundation Putting the Charter into Practice grant, created a set of three lists of specific steps physicians in internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics could take in their practices to promote the more effective use of health care resources. These lists were first published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Recognizing that patients need better information about what care they truly need to have these conversations with their physicians, Consumer Reports is developing patient-friendly materials and is working with consumer groups to disseminate them widely.

via About Choosing Care Wisely | An Initiative of the ABIM Foundation.