When Arizona residents need to take medication, they rely on both their physician to prescribe the correct medication and dosage and their local pharmacy to fill the prescription accurately. Unfortunately, pharmacists and staff members sometimes make mistakes when filling prescriptions. If the patient does not catch the error in time, the consequences can be severe.
Arizona residents with colon cancer in their family history may be interested in the result of a study published Jan. 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine that examines a way of detecting how aggressive colon cancer might be at an earlier stage.
In the past, the American Academy of Neurology has attempted to established guidelines for the diagnosis of brain death. In 2010, it published practice parameters meant to create consistent steps for diagnosing brain death that all hospitals would follow, including those in Arizona.
Dealing with serious heart problems in a young child can be risky at any Arizona hospital. However a recent investigative report noted that some hospitals throughout the nation have such poor success rates in pediatric heart surgeries that some colleagues are calling for the closure of unsuccessful programs.
A series of studies conducted by Oxford University may have answered the question of how to maximize patient safety during surgery. One school of thought believes that hospital staff working together made patients safer. Another believes that improved technology and operating technique would keep patients safer.
