Health and Human Rights: An International Journal

On September 17, 2008, Health and Human Rights: An International Journal celebrated its recent re-release as an open access publication. Health and Human Rights is published by the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights within the Harvard School of Public Health. Funding for the Journal and the Center comes from FXB International. The François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights was founded at Harvard University in January 1993 and was the first academic center to focus exclusively on health and human rights.

Take a look at the journal here.

Medicare Won’t Pay for Medical Errors

From the New York Times:

If an auto mechanic accidentally breaks your windshield while trying to repair the engine, he would never get away with billing you for fixing his mistake. On Wednesday, Medicare will start applying that logic to American medicine on a broad scale when it stops paying hospitals for the added cost of treating patients who are injured in their care. Medicare, which provides coverage for the elderly and disabled, has put 10 “reasonably preventable” conditions on its initial list, saying it will not pay when patients receive incompatible blood transfusions, develop infections after certain surgeries or must undergo a second operation to retrieve a sponge left behind from the first. Serious bed sores, injuries from falls and urinary tract infections caused by catheters are also on the list. Officials believe that the regulations could apply to several hundred thousand hospital stays of the 12.5 million covered annually by Medicare. The policy will also prevent hospitals from billing patients directly for costs generated by medical errors.