patient safety

The National Institutes of Health shut down some clinical trials and two production facilities over concerns that safety rules haven't been followed, but it says no patients appear to have been hurt.

More than half of the hospitals punished this year were also dinged in 2014. The government has used financial carrots and now sticks to improve the quality of care.

Only 7 percent of the nation's hospitals assessed by Medicare were good enough to win 5-star ratings. The government used patient reviews to come up with the grades.

Medical technology can make patient care better and more precise. But the gadgets and computers can cause trouble, too. One big problem is that most of the devices often can't talk with one another.

The Justice Department claimed patient safety celebrity Dr. Chuck Denham solicited payments from a medical products company to win a prestigious National Quality Forum endorsement for its antiseptic.

Kickback allegations against its former editor prompted the Journal of Patient Safety to review his writings and adopt new rules for disclosing commercial conflicts of interest.