Patient Safety and Ethics

Once again, Congress is considering a bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and make major cuts to Medicaid. Next week, the Senate may vote on this latest repeal effort, led by Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.

The California Supreme Court just armed would be challengers to the state’s prescription drug tracking system. And defanging the system would have an impact on patient safety.

Does the California Medical Board have the right to check records to see if a doctor is recklessly prescribing drugs? For the past three years, that question has been stuck in the courts.

California has been particuarly aggressive in its data-driven effort to curb high C-section rates at hospitals throughout the state. The results from early pilot projects have been promising.

How do you cover issues of transgender health with sensitivity and thoughtfulness? Journalist Keren Landman explains how she got up to speed as she first approached the beat.

Should medical residents still be allowed to work 28-hour shifts? One doctor recounts her exhausting, nightmarish shift in the ER as an example of what can go wrong as the hours stretch on.

"Our health care system remains in a crisis," writes the CEO of Molina Healthcare. "Both the AHCA and the ACA only address the funding of health care and fail to tackle the troubling rate at which health care costs are rising."

The tendency to blame the patient in the wake of deaths or complications often serves to obscure mistakes made by health care providers.

What would a more thorough effort to figure out what went wrong in health care-related deaths look like? Does medicine need the equivalent of aviation's black box?

Paxton’s death should prompt reporters to seek out expert opinions and remind readers of the very real risks that come with medical interventions.