Blood conservation program dramatically reduces transfusion rates; Upcoming summit aims to eliminate preventable patient deaths;

News From Around the Web

> A blood conservation program at the Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. that involved a series of changes in how open-heart surgery patients are treated before and during surgery dramatically reduced transfusion rates by 40 percent over a five-year period, according to the Sun Sentinel. Article

> The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare will partner with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation to host a summit designed to help eliminate the many preventable deaths in U.S. hospitals by 2020. Announcement

Health Provider News

> Even though most preventive care, including screening mammograms, is available without coinsurance to patients, other "hidden" costs of preventive care may still keep young, low-income women from getting breast lumps examined in a timely fashion, a study published Nov. 11 in Cancer suggests. Article

Health IT News

> Physician training for use of surgical robots at hospitals could become more standardized, thanks in part to a rise in reported adverse events associated with such tools, Bloomberg reported. Article

Health Insurer News

> As the federal health insurance exchange continues to falter amid technical problems, companies are continuing to launch their own private exchanges that could eventually compete alongside the public marketplaces. Article

And Finally...Whack-a-cab. Article