Since last week's Magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, there has been considerable coverage of the human and infrastructure losses from the disaster - heartbreaking stories of loss and inspiring stories of survival.

We send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Haiti and to the rescuers, humanitarians, and medical personnel doing all they can to help.

Our thoughts also go to those individuals and organizations who will help rebuild Port-Au-Prince and Haiti as a whole long after the news organizations depart.

The following are just a few of the many organizations accepting monetary donations to aid the earthquake victims. We are not affiliated with any of them and do not endorse one over the other.

1.  Catholic Relief Services      http://crs.org/
2.  Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich    (maintained a mission house in the badly damaged area of Pétionville)    http://www.haitianministries.org/
3. American Red Cross   http://www.redcross.org/en/givehere/
4. ZAKA - Israeli Rescue and Recovery organization working with the Israeli military rescue personnel in Haiti   http://www.zaka.us/index.asp
5. Doctors Without Borders (MSF)   http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/  - Long history of work in Haiti and other developing nations.
6. GHESKIO (an HIV / AIDS Clinic in Port-au-Prince whose facilities were destroyed - currently operating a field hospital nearby with support from US 82nd Airborne, donations via Weill Cornell Medical College Center for Global Health)
7. Partners in Health    http://www.pih.org/home2.html   PIH has been working in Haiti for more than 20 years.
8. Unicef - all donations according to donation site go to relief efforts (no administrative overhead)    https://secure.unicefusa.org/

Please also be careful donating - ensure that the websites you visit are encrypted correctly, that your web browser (if donating online) is secure, and that you do not fall for many of the ongoing scams related to earthquake relief (external link to FBI). 

Yesterday (January 5, 2010) the OIG for the US Department of Health and Human Services released a memorandum online entitled "Adverse Events in Hospitals: Public Disclosure of Information about Events." The memorandum report, as described in its cover page, "provides information about policies, practices, and plans for public disclosure of information about adverse events occurring in hospitals and patient privacy protectiol1s for adverse event data." The report is numbered OEI-06-09-00360 and is presented as an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) document.

Available from the Human Resources and Services Administration of the US Health and Human Services web site, the January 2010 issue of the National Practitioner Data Bank—Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank newsletter contains a number of articles of particular interest. In addition to information on protecting confidential information (including credit card data), the newsletter contains information on "summary" versus "precautionary" suspensions and what needs to be reported to the NPDB.

In a follow-up to an October initial safety notice, the FDA has issued interim recommendations for imaging facilities and care providers so as to provide excess radiation exposure to patients during CT scan procedures. More information can be found at the FDA: http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm193190.htm