Daily Rounds: Ventilator Alarm Deaths; Stent Doctor's Downfall; Hemophilia Breakthrough; Bedside Robots

Ventilator errors are linked to 119 deaths (The Boston Globe) - "More than a hundred patients who depend on ventilators to breathe have died since 2005 in incidents involving the machines’ warning alarms, such as caregivers failing to respond to beeps warning of a problem or setting alarms improperly so they sounded too softly or not at all. An analysis of federal safety reports by the Globe shows that at least 119 people died nationwide between 2005 and May 2011 because of such alarm-related problems." (The Boston Globe)

Mark Midei fights for medical license, exoneration (The Baltimore Sun) - "It took 25 years for Dr. Mark Midei to build his reputation and less than two for it to come crashing down. In the spring of 2009, he was a superstar cardiologist with a seven-figure salary and a staff that adored him. By late April 2011, he was disgraced, depressed, in a rehab facility, and so financially strapped he would soon have to put his sprawling home up for sale. "I've been near suicidal at times, my whole identity was stripped from me," Midei said last week in an exclusive meeting with The Baltimore Sun. It was his first extended interview since inquiries into whether he performed unnecessary medical procedures — the placement of coronary stents — were initiated by federal investigators and his employer in May 2009." (The Baltimore Sun)

Treatment for blood disease is gene therapy landmark (The New York Times) - "Medical researchers in Britain have successfully treated six patients suffering from the blood-clotting disease known as hemophilia B by injecting them with the correct form of a defective gene, a landmark achievement in the troubled field of gene therapy. Hemophilia B, which was carried by Queen Victoria and affected most of the royal houses of Europe, is the first well-known disease to appear treatable by gene therapy, a technique with a 20-year record of almost unbroken failure." (nytimes.com)

After surgery, a robot may be at your side (The Boston Globe) - "When Erin Tally took Aidan, her 2-year-old son, home from Children’s Hospital Boston on the day after his urinary surgery, she brought along a new friend: a 4-foot-6, 17-pound, two-wheeled robot that would help deliver care to her recovering child...The Vgo device, priced at about $6,000, is part of a five-robot pilot program at Children’s Hospital, testing whether the devices can help monitor patients after they leave the hospital. Such teleconference devices are increasingly being used in limited ways across the nation, but the Children’s program is being conducted on a larger scale and is considered a first in health care." (The Boston Globe)