CT Center for Patient Safety Newsletter
Legislative Update Janaury 21 2009
In This Issue
Our legislative agenda
More on Mrsa
15

Our focus this year:
 
The rights of patients: A hospital patients bill of rights and strengthening the rights of patients in nursing homes.
 
Transparency and accountability in the pharmaceutical industry: A gift ban, pharma payment disclosure, a ban on data mining, academic detailing. 
 
Protecting patient access to our courts: A Cap of $250,000 has already been introduced.  We will work to assure that this bill will not pass.
 
In our newsletters, I will be exploring with you what all this is and what it means to the consumer.  A lot more detail will follow.
Join Our Mailing List
Visit the General Assembly website http://www.cga.ct.gov/
and don't forget about http://www.ctn.state.ct.us/
and watch hearings on TV and on your computer
 
We are fully engaged and focused on our General Assembly.  Everyone is talking about ways in which to reform and transform our health care delivery system.  We need to have a seat at that table.  If we are not there, the healthcare consumer becomes tangential to what happens.  Our web site will have expanded coverage of what we are trying to accomplish this year.  And please call me or email me if you have questions about what you can do to assure the rights of patients.   www.ctcps.org
 
jeanrexford@aol.com or by phone 203 247 5757 
MRSA infections rising in childrens' ear, nose, throat
A new study has concluded that there's been a large increase in the number of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections found in kids' ears, noses and throats between 2001 and 2006. The increase also includes sinus infections and abscesses in the tonsils and throat.

The study, which appears in this month's Archives of Otolaryngology, found a total of 21,009 pediatric head and neck infections caused by staph during the five-year period studied. The percentage caused by MRSA shot up during that period, from almost 12 percent to 28 percent.

Researchers drew the information from a database collecting lab results from about 300 hospitals across the U.S. However, they concluded that almost 60 percent of MRSA infections found in the study were contracted outside of a hospital.


What we are watching
 
Proposed Bill No. 216:  An act providing a cap on noneconomic damages in Medical Malpractice Action.
Proposed Bill No 5291:  An act concerning Department of Public Health Oversight Over gifts provided by the Pharmaceutical Industry to Health care providers
Proposed Bill No 108:  An act concerning the Nursing Home facility Patients' Bill of Rights.
Proposed Bill No 135:  An act prohibiting the sale of physician prescription drug records for the purpose of pharmaceutical marketing.
Proposed Bill No 45:  Prohibition of certain gifts from pharmaceutical sales reps to health care providers
 Proposed Bill No 90:  An Act requiring chiropractors to obtain informed written consent from a patient prior to performing certain procedures involving treatment of the cervical spine.
Proposed Bill No 5030:An act concerning the establishment of a prescription drug academic detailing pilot project.