Tag Archives: doctor

Man sues doctor, says penile implant gave him 8-month erection

A truck driver who says a penile implant gave him an erection that lasted eight months described in court Tuesday how the procedure caused him to withdraw from much of life, wearing long, baggy sweat pants and a long shirt to hide his condition. Daniel Metzgar, 44, of Newark, testified in New Castle County Superior Court in Wilmington in his medical malpractice lawsuit against Wilmington urologist Dr. Thomas Desperito. He told jurors the inflatable prosthesis made him feel like less of a man. Colleen D. Shields, Desperito’s lawyer, said in her opening statement that sometimes bad medical results occur through the fault of no one. She also said that the urologist told Metzgar the prosthesis had to be removed four months after the surgery when Metzgar complained of an infection and that the erection wasn’t going down. Shields said Metzgar didn’t do anything for months after that visit, the News Journal of Wilmington reports. Metzgar had the procedure in December 2009. He said he lost his insurance afterward and didn’t have $10,000 he said Desperito wanted before he would do the surgery. The prosthesis was removed in August 2010 after tubing from the device punctured Metzgar’s scrotum. He now has a replacement prosthesis from another doctor. But Metzgar says scar tissue from the first surgery left him about 50 percent smaller and he does not get the same level of sensation. Metzgar and his wife, Donna, are seeking unspecified damages from Desperito and his medical group.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/12/man-sues-doctor-after-penile-implant-gave-him-8-month-erection/

Program helped limit antibiotic misuse in kids

A one-hour educational session followed by personalized feedback helped pediatricians more closely align their antibiotic prescribing habits with national guidelines, in a new study. Researchers found fewer doctors in the program prescribed a drug that could increase the risk of antibiotic resistance for children with pneumonia or a sinus infection, compared to those who received no extra guidance. “We tried to keep it relatively simple,” said Dr. Jeffery Gerber, who led the new study at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. “Our hope is that any practice with an electronic health record would be able to adopt this strategy.” The potential for antibiotic resistance - when bacteria no longer respond to certain drugs - exists any time an antibiotic is used. Researchers have focused on limiting overuse or misuse of those drugs, in hopes they will continue to work when needed. One strategy for preventing resistance is to prescribe the antibiotic most specifically targeted to a particular infection, rather than a “broad-spectrum” antibiotic that can kill many types of bacteria. For their new study, Gerber and his colleagues tracked how often pediatricians prescribed a broad-spectrum drug versus “narrow-spectrum” options such as penicillin and amoxicillin, which are recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for conditions like pneumonia and sinus infections. Their data came from 162 doctors at 18 pediatric primary care practices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, nine of which received the year-long education and electronic feedback intervention. In the 20 months before the initial education session, doctors prescribed broad-spectrum antibiotics to 27 percent of kids with common respiratory infections. During the program, that fell to 14 percent. In comparison, the decline in antibiotic misuse was much smaller at practices where doctors didn't receive education or feedback: from 28 percent to 23 percent, Gerber's team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers did not see a reduction in how often antibiotics were inappropriately prescribed for viral conditions - but those numbers were low to begin with, they said. Dr. Adam Hersh, who studies pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said doctors in general are getting better at not prescribing antibiotics when they won't help, such as for the common cold. But concerns about increasing resistance continue. “Despite the success in the decline in overall antibiotic use that we've seen over the last decade, at the same time there's still an ongoing problem and even increasing problem of overuse of unnecessarily broad-spectrum antibiotics,” he said. Narrow-spectrum drugs “will limit the collateral damage that goes along with antibiotic prescribing,” said Hersh, who didn't participate in the new study. And they're often cheaper than broad-spectrum versions. He said the program used in the new study has the advantage of being relatively cheap and non-intrusive, so it's likely to work for other types of practices. Still, it's unclear from these findings whether the rate of broad-spectrum prescribing would stay down after doctors stopped getting regular antibiotic-related feedback, Gerber and his colleagues noted. Hersh said parents can do their part by asking if an antibiotic is really necessary when the doctor prescribes one, as well as if it's the most appropriate version. “The number one thing is to make sure the kid gets the best medication that cures their infection,” Gerber said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/12/program-helped-limit-antibiotic-misuse-in-kids/

Oregon passes bill on vaccination education

A bill that is intended to persuade more Oregon parents to take their kids to doctors for shots and get over their mistrust of conventional medicine has taken a big step in the Legislature with passage by the state Senate. Oregon has the nation's highest rate of parents refusing vaccinations for their kindergartners for nonmedical reasons. This school year, 6.4 percent of Oregon kindergartners were exempted from at least one required vaccination, up from 5.8 percent last year. The median nonmedical exemption rate for kindergartners in the U.S. was 1.2 percent for the 2011-2012 school year, the most recent period for which national data was available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are some pockets in the state where parents don't believe vaccinations protect their kids and they choose alternative treatments instead. Those kinds of beliefs have raised concerns that Oregon children aren't being adequately protected. On Thursday, the Senate approved a bill that would make it more difficult for parents to get nonmedical exemptions from vaccines for their children. It now goes to the House. The 16-13 vote was along party lines. The bill riled Republicans who said it trampled on religious freedoms and limited parents' choice. “I'm getting very tired of this legislative assembly and this body taking away the choices of parents as to how they raise their kids,” said Sen. Jeff Kruse, a Roseburg Republican. Republicans pitched an alternative proposal that would have carved out an exemption for “sincerely held religious beliefs,” but the plan failed. As proposed, the bill would still allow parents to refuse vaccinations for religious or philosophical reasons, but only after they'd visited the doctor or watched the educational video. Current state law requires all children in public and private schools, preschools and certified child care facilities to be immunized. Parents, however, can seek exemptions for medical or religious reasons. “I worry that most people who use the religious exemption currently are doing so because of pseudo-scientific misinformation, and not because of their faith,” said Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a Beaverton Democrat and family physician. Under the bill, parents enrolling unvaccinated children in school would have to prove they consulted a physician for information or show verification they watched an online educational video about the risks and benefits of immunization. The educational material would be consistent with the most up-to-date medical information provided by the CDC. Doctors and public health officials back the plan, saying the rate of unvaccinated children in Oregon is alarming and could cause a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough and measles. Similar legislation was passed in Washington in 2011. The following school year, the rate of religious immunization exemptions for kindergartners fell by almost 25 percent, according to CDC data.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/10/oregon-passes-bill-on-vaccination-education/

Public health crisis in Mexico as breastfeeding rates drop, experts claim

Despite the well-known advantages to breast milk and vigorous campaigns around the world championing breast as best, Mexican mothers say the bottle is better. In a dramatic decline over the past six years, today only one in seven mothers in Mexico breast-feeds exclusively in the first six months, the standard recommended by the World Health Organization. That leaves Mexico with nearly the lowest level of breast-feeding in Latin America. Experts call it a public health crisis for a country where millions still live in extreme poverty, dirty water threatens the health of many families and education is poor. Mother's milk is richer in nutrients and antibodies that protect newborns from infections. Mexico has the highest infant mortality rate among the world's 40 largest economies. Between 2005 and 2010, breast cancer deaths increased twice as fast as Mexico's female population, with some experts blaming declining rates of breast-feeding; studies show it cuts a woman's risk of cancer by 50 percent or more. Officials blame an invasion of baby food ads, little regulation of formula companies and the failure of doctors to promote breast-feeding for an overreliance on formula. “Mexico has become the example of what not to do. It's the strongest case of a setback in breast-feeding,” said Marcos Arana Cedeno, a child nutrition expert and health adviser for the state of Chiapas. Feeding newborns with breast milk can save lives in developing nations, where children have higher chances of dying from diarrhea and pneumonia. The WHO has recommended for the past decade that infants be given only breast milk for the first six months. The percentage of Mexican moms who nurse their babies that long fell from 22 percent in 2006 to 14 percent last year, according to a Health Department survey. Only the Dominican Republic has a lower rate of breast-feeding in the region, at 8 percent. Other nations have improved their numbers, led by Brazil and Colombia, which in the past two decades more than tripled the percentage of mothers breast-feeding - to 47 percent in Colombia and 39 percent in Brazil. For many mothers drawn into the urban workforce, nursing a baby while juggling a job is too difficult. “I had to go back to work and I wasn't going to be able to breast-feed him for long. That's why I chose formula,” said Ruth Gonzalez, a clothing company manager. Gonzalez nursed her baby boy, Luis, only at night, after work. He drank formula during the day, and went off breast milk completely after a month. “Formula was just easier,” she said. Yet, even in traditional rural areas, the trend is downward. Breast-feeding fell by half in poor, rural areas, where babies are exposed to more sanitation problems, according to the Health Department survey. Nutritionists complain that Mexico has not adopted laws to meet guidelines adopted by WHO in 1981, which asked countries to restrict companies from providing free samples of formula or approaching new mothers to push their product. “It really is a tragedy,” said Teresa Gonzalez de Cossio, a nutritionist who researches breast-feeding at the National Institute of Public Health. “There is no one making sure we are following international codes. The country is not setting any goals regarding breast-feeding.” Countries such as Brazil and the United States have long stressed the importance of breast-feeding. The U.S. has improved its rate of mothers who exclusively breast-feed for the first six months to 16 percent in 2012 from 11 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most New York City hospitals no longer hand out promotional samples of formula and ask new mothers to participate in talks on why human milk is better. Portland, Maine, started a campaign asking businesses to make mothers feel welcome to breast-feed wherever they want. Brazil reversed a decline in breast-feeding in the 1980s by strictly limiting advertising by baby food companies and airing prime-time informational spots with national celebrities to dispel myths, such as that women with small breasts were incapable of nursing. Mexico lets companies self-regulate on following the WHO guidelines. It has rules that say hospitals and doctors should guide new mothers through breast-feeding, but it doesn't enforce them. Dr. Rufino Luna Gordillo, the Health Department's deputy director of maternal and newborn care, said Mexico is renewing periodic checks of breast-feeding practices at public and private hospitals, a policy born in the early 1990s that had fallen by the wayside. “It's clear that these efforts have not been enough to get to the ideal breast-feeding levels,” Luna said in a written statement. “We need to debunk many myths about breast-feeding, limit the abuse of infant formula makers ... and award companies that offer nursing rooms.” Some new mothers say they didn't receive any help on breast-feeding after giving birth and say nurses, without seeking permission, offered formula to newborns at the nursery. In addition, with half of the babies born in Mexico via cesarean-section, many mothers struggle to nurse in the first hours and days after surgery. With little government promotion of breast-feeding, myths proliferate: sagging breasts do not provide healthy milk, or that nursing babies will spoil them. Pediatricians also hear women say that they want to stop breast-feeding so they won't lose their perky breasts. “In Mexico, breast-feeding is not a normative behavior,” said Chessa Lutter, the Pan American Health Organization's regional adviser for food and nutrition. “You are going to see probably walking down the street in Mexico City a lot more bottle-feeding than you are breast-feeding.” Advocates for breast-feeding say big business is to blame. They claim doctors are plied with gifts by formula makers to get them to help introduce infant formula to newborns. Elia Rangel, mother of a 9-month-old girl, Samantha, said a family physician told her not to breast-feed after six months. “We don't have information that is up to date,” she complained. “I came across a doctor at a public hospital who asked me how old Samantha was. She was 7 months. He told me, `Breast milk is no good; it can even harm her.' I was like, `Wow, where did you get this information?'” The government says it discourages the unnecessary use of formula, but Mexico's own Social Security Institute, whose logo shows a mother breast-feeding, provides formula to women even without a medical need if they present a doctor's note. As long ago as 1993, a study warned that Mexico needed to review that policy because of the high cost in both financial and health terms. The government still pays about $35 million a year on cans of infant formula from the Swiss-based food company Nestle, which receives more than 96 percent of the public money spent on formula. Nestle and the U.S.-based Mead Johnson, the two main baby food companies in Mexico, responded in statements that they support the WHO's code for breast-milk substitutes and comply with the law. They say they don't advertise food for babies less than 1 year of age or discourage mothers from breast-feeding. Nestle said it “does not give free supplies of infant formula to hospitals” and cited a 1992 “self-regulatory agreement” that the industry signed with Health Department to end the provisions of formula samples to Mexico's hospitals and doctors. Chris Perille, spokesman for Mead Johnson, said the company tells health professionals about the benefits of their products but doesn't break the rules. “Our work with these experts is conducted in accordance with the highest standards of ethics and integrity, and in compliance with all applicable laws, professional requirements and industry guidelines,” Perille said in a statement.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/06/public-health-crisis-in-mexico-as-breastfeeding-rates-drop-experts-claim/

Statins linked to muscle pain, sprains

Cholesterol-lowering drugs could be tied to more muscle problems than researchers previously believed, a new study hints. Researchers compared two groups of similar people enrolled in military health insurance and found those taking a statin were about 10 percent more likely to have muscle pain, sprains or strains. Past studies have tied the popular cholesterol drugs to muscle weakness as well as the rare muscle-wasting disease rhabdomyolysis. The new study expands on those findings and suggests the muscle-related side effects of statins might be broader, researchers said. However, they don't prove statins caused the pain and injuries seen among some patients. “I would strongly recommend that no one should stop taking statins based on this study… simply because statins have been life-saving for many patients,” said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Ishak Mansi. However, he said side effects including muscle injuries are something to think about for people who are discussing with their doctor whether they really need to be on a statin. And they're another reason to try to maintain a healthy lifestyle - including exercising and not smoking - to avoid needing drugs in the first place, he added. Mansi, from the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas, and his colleagues compared the health records of two groups of patients who were the same age and had the same types of medical conditions. People in one group had been prescribed a statin in late 2004 and 2005; those in the other group never took statins during the study period. The researchers tracked the medical records of each of those patients - about 14,000 in total - through early 2010 for signs of muscle problems. They found 87 percent of statin users had some type of muscle or joint problem - including arthritis and muscle injuries - compared to 85 percent of people who didn't take a statin. Strains, sprains and dislocations, in particular, were reported for 35 percent of people on a statin, compared to 32.5 percent of those not taking a cholesterol-lowering drug. And medical records showed muscle pain among 73.5 percent of statin users, versus 71.5 percent of non-users, Mansi's team reported in JAMA Internal Medicine. Mansi said those proportions are a bit higher than usual both in the statin and non-statin groups - possibly because his study included military members and veterans, who are more likely to get injured. The researchers calculated that 37 people would have to be treated with statins for one more to have a muscle strain or sprain, and 58 people for one more case of muscle or joint pain. About one-quarter of U.S. adults aged 45 and older take statins to protect against heart attacks and strokes. The drugs are especially recommended for people with diabetes or a history of cardiovascular problems. Dr. Paul Thompson, chief of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, said his own research suggests about 5 percent of people will have muscle problems related to statin use. “We think it's a much bigger problem than it's given credit for,” Thompson, who wasn't involved in the new study, said. However, he said, those muscle problems don't seem to be permanent. “I encourage people to not worry about the possibilities of muscle troubles,” he said. “If they get muscle troubles, we'll stop the drug, and it will go away.” Mansi agreed that people “don't need to be excessively worried” about muscle pain or injuries tied to statins, but that they're something to consider. “Patients need to discuss with their doctors the benefit-risk ratio of statins for them specifically,” he said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/statins-linked-to-muscle-pain-sprains/

Avastin fails studies in new brain tumor patients

New research raises fresh questions about which cancer patients benefit from Avastin, a drug that lost its approval for treating breast cancer nearly two years ago. Avastin did not prolong life when used as a first treatment for people with brain tumors like the one U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy died of several years ago, two studies found. In one, patients who were expected to benefit the most from Avastin based on genetic testing had the worst survival rates. Side effects also were more common with Avastin. The drug is approved for treating brain tumors that have recurred for people who already tried chemotherapy or radiation. But that approval was based on studies suggesting it briefly delayed the worsening of the disease. No definitive study shows it helps those patients live longer, either. Something similar happened with breast cancer: Avastin won the Food and Drug Administration's approval after studies suggested it delayed disease progression. But when later research showed it did not prolong life and brought more side effects, its approval for breast cancer was revoked. However, many cancer experts say the same thing should not happen now, and that Avastin should retain its approval for brain cancer patients whose disease has recurred. “I would definitely not want the FDA to take that away from patients,” said Dr. Deepa Subramaniam, director of the brain tumor center at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C. “That's very different from the breast cancer story,” where there are many other drugs that can be tried, she said. She had no role in the new studies, which were discussed Sunday at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago. Avastin, made by Swiss-based Roche's Genentech unit, acts by depriving tumors of a blood supply. It's also sold for treating certain colon, lung and kidney tumors. Another study discussed Sunday and released previously showed it helped women with advanced cervical cancer live nearly four months longer. The new brain cancer studies tested it as initial treatment for glioblastoma, the most common and deadly type of tumor. About 10,000 Americans each year are diagnosed with these tumors, which are nearly always incurable. In one study, 637 patients received standard chemotherapy plus radiation, and half also received Avastin. Both groups lived about 16 months, and those on Avastin had more side effects - mostly low blood counts, blood clots and high blood pressure. “Our study would strongly suggest that it is not beneficial to do it as front-line treatment but to reserve it as second-line or salvage therapy,” said study leader Dr. Mark Gilbert of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Federal grants and Genentech paid for the study, and Gilbert consults for the company. More troubling, independent experts said, is that patients who were expected to do the best based on genetic and other tests surprisingly had a worse survival trend - 16 months versus 25 months for others in the study. New research needs to be done to better define which patients benefit, said Rakesh Jain, a brain tumor expert at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “We just cannot give these agents to every patient,” he said. A second study that tested Avastin as initial therapy with radiation and the drug Temodar found it did not prolong life, but patients on Avastin went nearly five months longer before their tumors appeared to worsen. Avastin costs about $43,000 plus doctor infusion charges for a course of treatment for people whose brain tumors have recurred.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/avastin-fails-studies-in-new-brain-tumor-patients/

New technology makes breast cancer surgery more precise

Surgeons at UC Irvine Medical Center are the first in the country to use a device that reduces by half the need to reoperate and cut out breast cancer cells missed during an initial lumpectomy. The MarginProbe System lets the surgeon immediately assess whether cancer cells remain on the margins of excised tissue. Currently, patients have to wait days for a pathologist to determine this…

7 warning signs you should not ignore

A few days after Melissa Daly broke her ankle, the calf above it became tender. Within a week, her foot was dark purple. She saw her doctor, who dismissed it as normal bruising and offered a prescription for painkillers. The drugs didn't help, and a week later she woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air.  “I felt like I was suffocating,” she said. Her husband called 911, and within an hour she was on a respirator in the ER. A blood clot had broken off from her calf and lodged in her lungs. The agony she felt is one of seven pains you should never brush off. Read on to make sure that your nagging aches are as innocent as they seem. MORE: 7 Lies We Tell Our Doctors Severe Head Pain This mother of all headaches makes your bachelorette party hangover seem laughable. If you could laugh. The culprit: Odds are, any jackhammering in your brain is just a migraine. But if it's not accompanied by other migraine symptoms (such as a visual aura), sudden and severe pain -- we're talking the absolute worst headache of your life -- can signal a brain aneurysm.  These arterial bulges occur in up to 5 percent of people, but most of the time they don't cause any trouble -- you won't even know you have one unless the weak spot leaks or tears. If that happens, escaping blood can flood the surrounding tissue (causing a violent headache) and cut off the oxygen supply there. Smoking and having a family history of aneurysms increase your odds. The fix: “A burst aneurysm can cause brain damage within minutes, so you need to call 911 immediately,” Dr. Elsa-Grace Giardina, director of the Center for Women's Health at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, said.  Your doctor will take a CT scan to look for bleeding in the space around the brain. If he finds hemorrhaging, you'll head into the (operating room) pronto for surgery to repair the blood vessel. Throbbing Tooth Spooning your way through a pint of Chubby Hubby has become an exercise in torture. When your teeth touch anything frosty, you feel a dull throb or sharp twinge. The culprit: It's likely that the tooth's nerve has become damaged, usually because the surrounding pearly white is cracked or rotting away. Unless you get it patched up quickly, bacteria in your mouth can infect the nerve. And you definitely don't want that breeding colony to spread throughout your body, said Kimberly Harms, a dentist outside St. Paul, Minnesota. The fix: Time for a cavity check! You may just need a filling to cover the exposed nerve. But if it's infected, you're in for a root canal, in which the tooth's bacteria-laden pulp is removed and replaced with plastic caulking material. Antibiotics can clear up any infection that has spread beyond the mouth. MORE: The 10 Self-Checks Every Woman Should Do Sharp Pain In Your Side A typical runner's side stitch pales in comparison to this piercing stab, which intensifies over a few hours or days. The culprits: You may just need some Beano. But if you feel as if you're being skewered in your right side and you're also nauseated and running a fever, you could have appendicitis. It occurs when something (like a stray piece of feces) migrates into the space where the appendix empties into the colon, blocking it. Soon the organ becomes dangerously inflamed.  Another possibility is an ovarian cyst. Typically these fluid-filled sacs are harmless and disappear on their own. But if one twists or ruptures, it can cause terrible pain. The fix: In both cases, you're looking at emergency surgery.  “If you don't remove an inflamed ap­pendix, it can burst,” Dr. Lin Chang, a gastroenterologist and co-director of UCLA's Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women's Health, said.  This can cause dangerous swelling of the tissue surrounding your organs. A twisted cyst also needs to be removed right away, as it can block blood flow to your ovary within hours. If that happens, the doctor will need to cut out the entire ovary (and the eggs inside) along with the cyst. Passing Chest Pain Periodically, you get what feels like a bad case of heartburn, or a tight squeezing sensation, as if you're being laced into a corset. The culprit: You probably just peppered your pizza with too many chilis. But if you know you're at risk for heart problems, don't blow it off -- it could be a heart attack. Every year, about 10,000 women under 45 have one. Symptoms tend to be less severe in women than in men, so “you may just feel pressure, along with fatigue, throat pain, or shortness of breath,” Giardina said. The fix: Feel the burn after feasting on chalupas? Normal. Feel as if you're being squeezed to death by a boa constrictor after a hard workout?

Woman claims she contracted herpes from lipstick at a Rihanna concert

A Harlem woman is claiming she contracted herpes from a sample of RiRi Woo lipstick she tested at a Rihanna concert in Brooklyn on May 7, Medical Daily reported. Starkeema Greenidge, 28, has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against MAC Cosmetics, which manufactures the product.  According to Greenidge, she visited a pop-up shop at the singer’s Barclay’s Center show, where a Mac Cosmetics representative applied the RiRi Woo lipstick to Greenidge’s lips. Caused by the herpes simplex virus, herpes is a common sexually transmitted disease (STD) that affects 16.2 percent of Americans, or one out of every six people, between the ages of 14 and 49, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The disease is often contracted through sex, but it can also be transmitted through touching and kissing while an infected individual has a herpes “flare up.” Greenidge said in the suit that the MAC Cosmetics representative failed to warn her that the lipstick had been used by other concert attendees.  When Greenidge developed a cold sore two days later, she went to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with herpes. According to the lawsuit, Greenidge has suffered mental anguish and distress after contracting the STD, Medical Daily reported. A spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics issued a statement to the Daily Beast on Thursday about the incident: “Consumer safety is a top priority at MAC Cosmetics, and we take these matters very seriously. We are closely reviewing these claims.” Click for more from Medical Daily.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/31/woman-claims-contracted-herpes-from-lipstick-at-rihanna-concert/

Hospitals install sensors, film employees to ensure hand-washing

Many hospitals are now utilizing motion sensors, hand-washing coaches and video cameras in their facilities to monitor whether nurses and doctors are washing their hands, the New York Times reported. Hand-washing, or basic hand hygiene, is essential in the hospital industry, especially in the wake of a recent report from  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicating that drug-resistant superbugs are on the rise. Infections acquired in hospitals cost $30 billion a year and lead to approximately 100,000 patient deaths annually. As a result, hospitals are going to great lengths to ensure proper hand-washing and sanitation. In a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, N.Y., installed motion sensors designed to power on whenever someone entered an intensive care room in the hospital. The sensors activated a video camera, which transmitted images to workers in India who monitored whether nurses and doctors washed their hands. In order to receive a passing score, workers needed to wash their hands within 10 seconds of entering a patient’s room; the quality of the washing was not monitored. Only people who remained in the room for at least 60 seconds were tracked. The sensors were developed by a company called Arrowsight, which initially used this motion sensor technology to ensure sanitary conditions in the meat industry. Initially, hospital employees were not notified they were being monitored. During the first 16-week trial period, employees washed their hands at a rate of less than 10 percent, the study revealed. However, once employees started receiving reports about their behavior, hand washing rates rose to 88 percent. The hospital still uses the system, but only in the intensive care unit due to high costs. Other hospitals throughout the country are employing hand-washing coaches, as well as offering rewards like free pizza and coupons for employees who use proper hygiene.  Some are also administering penalties when employees fail to comply with hygiene standards. Others are using radio-frequency ID chips that activate whenever a doctor passes a sink, and some hospitals are even using undercover hand-washing “monitors” who police whether or not doctors are washing their hands for the recommended 15 seconds. “This is not a quick fix; this is a war,” Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious disease at North Shore, told the New York Times. Some doctors and hospital employees, who may neglect to wash their hands due to factors like stress, forgetfulness or hand dryness, have resisted the new technology. Elaine Larson, a professor in Columbia University’s school of nursing who studies hand-washing, supports the electronic systems being developed.  However, she says none are perfect yet. “People learn to game the system,” she told the New York Times. “There was one system where the monitoring was waist high, and they learned to crawl under that. Or there are people who will swipe their badges and turn on the water, but not wash their hands. It’s just amazing.” Click for more from the New York Times.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/29/hospitals-install-sensors-film-workers-to-ensure-hand-washing/