Those people aged in their high 90s, 100, and over 100 have seen a rise in procedures and treatments normally used for the elderly in their 70s and 80s, reports The New York Times. Patients older than 75 have not been commonly represented in clinical trials, but many geriatricians are reporting that certain procedures such as knee and hip replacements, heart valve replacements, pacemaker implants and others are becoming more commonplace in patients 90 and older. A debate has been started concerning how far the medical field should go in treating the oldest patients. Should relatively healthy patients who are very old be given the same treatments as younger elderly patients who have debilitating diseases, the article asks. To read the article, click here.

Dr. Anna Pou, a cancer surgeon at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, LA, recently had charges against her dropped, reports the Associated Press. Pou was working during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was accused of administering lethal doses of medications to four patients. She describes the physical conditions of the hospital as being deplorable, saying "The smell got to be rancid in no time." Pou and other nurses and physicians who stayed in the hospital during the storm cared for the sickest patients and eventually were ordered by the military to do a reverse triage and transport the healthiest patients first. Though Pou has admitted many patients were sedated during the storm, she has denied ever using a "lethal cocktail" of medications to kill the four elderly patients. After she had a new job at a Baton Rouge hospital in 2006, Pou was arrested in July 2007. In July 2008, the charges were dropped. To read the article, click here.

In order for New Jersey consumers to make an educated decision about where they receive healthcare, AARP of New Jersey says they should be provided with more detailed information about medical errors, reports The Courier-Post. New Jersey residents are provided with a list of all medical errors that occurred in the past year by the state Department of Health and Senior Services but are not told at which facilities the errors occurred. AARP maintains that consumers should know these details to make more informed decisions about where to seek treatment. A spokesperson for the state Department of Health says that its current policy fosters a climate that encourages physicians to report the medical errors and learn from the reported errors to prevent them from occurring again. To read the article, click here.

A new study by the Commonwealth Fund, which first surveyed the U.S.’s healthcare in 2006, shows that access to quality healthcare is down across the country as are quality rates, reports The Washington Post. In addition, the U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation in the world. Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis said that affordable healthcare needs to be available to all citizens of the U.S., and how doctors are paid needs to be changed to reward quality care. The report called Why Not The Best? Results From The National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008shows that the U.S. scored a 65 out of a possible 100 when complying with national and international benchmarks. The report shows that even in areas in which the U.S. improved, other countries improved more rapidly. To read the story, click here.