Industry regulations

  Plastic is one of the most serious problems of the 21st century. This is not due to the raw materials or production processes, but to the fact that 32% of plastic packaging worldwide is not recovered (whether by landfill, incineration, or recycling). They end up uncontrolled in the environment. A complete decomposition of plastics…

In Part 4 of this series, we detailed edge computing and gateways for industrial machinery. Now consider the various protocols and communications leveraged in IIoT connectivity — for example, the SCADA, MES, and ERP architectures we already covered in Part 1 and 2 of this series. These are the most involved in IT/OT (operational technology) […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Saturday for more outside regulation in several areas in which the social media site has run into problems over the past few years: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Zuckerberg said governments and regulators rather than…

German authorities have published a list of security requirements for telecoms networks amid concerns about the possible involvement of companies such as China’s Huawei in future 5G infrastructure. Authorities published a list of requirements Thursday that says “systems may only be sourced from trustworthy suppliers whose compliance with national security regulations and provisions for the…

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has recently announced it is dropping plans of the Los Angeles underground tunnel plans after concerns from residents, according to USA Today. The LA transit initiative said Tuesday that it was going to withdraw plans for a tunnel, under Interstate 405, after a settlement with community groups sued the city when…

With the increased role of technology in health care and health care administration, concern over cybersecurity continues to increase. Cybersecurity sessions at health care conferences are often packed as industry leaders attempt to hammer out solutions that balance the need for data security and privacy of patient data. As part of the Administration’s ongoing efforts…

In Part 1 of this story, PDD examined the issues of product safety and labeling. In Part 2, we examine the challenges of IoT-connected products and misuse of products Hackers Love Smart Products Today, numerous products are made into smart products that have integrated sensors and software built into their designs via a wired or wireless…

At the 30th Annual Product Liability Conference held recently at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, there was a lot of talk about safely integrating IoT when designing products. This went hand-in-hand on how to prepare individuals on how to effectively use smart products without misusing them. But, in order to ensure products aren’t misused,…

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has stopped funding a Houston hospital’s renowned heart transplant program amid scrutiny over patient deaths. Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center lost the federal funding Friday under a decision announced in June, the Houston Chronicle reported. The federal health agency announced the decision after finding that the hospital hadn’t…

Teoka Williams recently filed suit against Beaumont Health, located in Dearborn, Michigan, claiming the hospital violated the Civil Rights Act when it barred her from entering the room of a patient who’d complained about having a black nurse. According to the lawsuit, Williams overheard a patient in her care say she didn’t want a “black bitch”…

A co-founder of Jefferson Airplane is accusing a New York City hospital of destroying his musical career with a botched tracheotomy after heart surgery in 2016. A lawsuit filed by Marty Balin against the operators of Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital alleges the singer and guitarist lost part of his tongue and has a paralyzed…

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, an independent agency, said Thursday that a White House official called to talk about a proposed merger between Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. and Tribune Media Co. Ajit Pai told a Senate panel that Don McGahn, the White House counsel, called for a “status update” on the agency’s action…

A medical device maker has settled a lawsuit over the death of a prominent Yale University psychologist who died in 2013 when a machine part detached and caused her blood to be pumped onto a hospital room floor. Germany-based Maquet Cardiopulmonary and its U.S. sales division based in Wayne, New Jersey, settled the lawsuit in…

When Michigan-based hospital system Beaumont Health recently announced a hefty settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, the organization leadership undoubtedly expected their legal troubles were over. Instead, the subsequent unsealing of the provoking whistleblowers’ lawsuit has opened the not-for-profit health system up to a potential new challenge, as three cardiologists named in the legal…

Accountable care organizations were among the key initiatives of the Affordable Care Act, designed to help control soaring Medicare costs. ACOs were expected to save the government nearly $5 billion by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It hasn’t come anywhere close. Last week, the Trump administration proposed an overhaul to the program, which was designed…

A Kentucky doctor convicted of illegally prescribing opioids to patients who died of overdoses has been sentenced to four years and two months in prison. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Saturday that 69-year-old Roy D. Reynolds also was ordered last week to pay $25,000 in fines. U.S. Attorney Russell M. Coleman says in a release that Reynolds “became…

As the FCC on Wednesday opened its annual inquiry into whether high-speed internet is being deployed to all Americans fast enough, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel dissented, asserting that the national minimum of 25 Mbps is too slow. In her dissenting statement to the FCC’s 14th Broadband Deployment Report Notice of Inquiry, Rosenworcel said it “fundamentally errs”…

Following an outcry from patient safety advocates, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) scrapped a plan that would have largely eliminated the requirement that hospitals report infection rates. The new rule announced last week maintains the practice of mandatory reporting for hospitals and public disclosure of the data. Leah Binder, CEO of the…

The judge who allowed AT&T’s mega-merger with Time Warner was clearly wrong in concluding the marriage won’t harm consumers, the Trump Justice Department argued Monday in challenging the decision. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon misunderstood the complexities of the booming pay-TV market and the nature of AT&T’s competitors, the department’s antitrust regulators asserted in their…

A woman suing a Southern California hospital says she underwent a cesarean section without anesthesia. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune , the lawsuit filed last month claims an anesthesiologist didn’t immediately answer pages at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside last November, so the emergency operation was performed without him. The lawsuit says Delfina Mota was more…

Joseph James Pappas, recently identified as the lead suspect in the murder of Houston surgeon Mark Hausknecht, MD, was confronted by police late last week. Facing apprehension by law enforcement authorities, Pappas turned his weapon on himself and committed suicide, reports the Houston Chronicle. “The potential threat to the city from an accused murderer considered…

Prime Healthcare Services, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems, agreed Friday to pay $65 million to settle allegations of Medicare overbilling in California. The company and CEO Prem Reddy agreed to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that 14 of its hospitals unnecessarily admitted patients and also “upcoded” patient diagnoses, exaggerating their illnesses in order…

Houston police this week named a suspect in the murder of Mark Hausknecht, MD, a surgeon who was fatally shot last month as he bicycled to work at Houston Methodist Hospital. Authorities identified the shooter as Joseph James Pappas, a 62-year-old white male who resides in Houston. It’s believed the motive is the death of…

A cardiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University has filed a $15 million defamation lawsuit against his employer and several colleagues. Tiziano Scarabelli, MD, PhD, claims his complaints about protocols that could compromise patient safety led to a concerted effort to drum up cause for firing him. “We have no comment on the pending litigation beyond stating…

Judges in California and South Carolina have ordered cellphone carriers to disable nearly 200 contraband cellphones used by inmates to orchestrate crimes behind and outside prison walls, the most sweeping order of its kind ever won by corrections officials. It’s an important victory for prison officials who have been frustrated by their inability to stop…