What are the protections offered for qui tam relators (whistleblowers) since they are private citizens?

My facility had an incident where during a interventional radiologic procedure there was a change in procedure which required a new  consent, the only problem was that the patient was partially sedated and the physician still went ahead with the consent and the procedure. With two physicians ,three nurses none wanted to stop the procedure and inform the physician that he was making a grave error. This incident highlights the pressures faced by medical professionals and supporting staff to deliver competent and legal care. One of the major questions that came out of this RCA was who is responsible for stopping a procedure if there is an identified infraction? The answer is anyone . If a concern is made it must be investigated immediately which means stopping or delaying a procedure until the concern can be satisfied.

In what situation would a patient not have the right to access their medical records?  Also, can an insurance company withhold medical information obtained during an insurance physical for any reason?

Managed care models originated in order to contain costs in a health care system. The idea of predetermining the number and types of medical procedures and tests, to order for specific patient symptoms, was not an idea widely accepted by physicians when it first began in the 80's. Managed care was also called a "doc in a box" way of practicing medicine. The way to save money and produce quality outcomes and high customer satisfaction scores is to do what the Veteran's Health Administration did and that was to focus on preventive care and health care maintenance. The VA's focus on preventive care to a population of patients that have as many comorbidities as medicare patients, has proven that this focus is cost efficient and produces quality outcomes for the Veteran's served. For more information on how the VA was able to achieve these results read the book "Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours: by: Phillip Longman

One of the hot topics in our presidential campaign is the national healthcare insurance issue. Who supports that and why? I recall a brief overview of each Democratic candidate's proposal for that (before the nominee was selected), but would love more details of Barack Obama's proposal. Any leads for that? (Sorry, this is a 3-part question!)

Can anyone recommend a listing of the most common medical words/terms that would be benefical for non-clinical folks to be familiar with?

Can anyone explain the distinction between quality assurance and quality improvement?

One of the most important movements we have seen in health care  in the past seven years is the patient safety movement. Each year this initiative continues to expand, focusing on tools such as the root cause analysis process to identify system breakdowns that have led to medical errors. Keeping the focus on the system and not the person has allowed organizations to move towards a culture of safety. An increase in medical error reporting is a result of this culture and one that allows an organization to truely embrace the concepts of quality improvement versus quality assurance.