It was just a little more than a month ago the Food and Drug Administration reacted to the concerns expressed by researchers that drug-coated stents could possibly cause complications including blood clots years after implementation. They did this by stating that they expected to issue new testing requirements for drug-coated stents.

Now, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that the use of drug-eluting stents was not associated with an increased risk of death and supports their use for off-label indications.

About half of stents currently placed in heart patients in the United States are used “off-label” –for purposes not officially approved by the FDA. The earlier studies suggested drug-coated stents used off-label posed a small risk and warranted further examination by the FDA.

Narrowed coronary arteries deliver blood and oxygen to the heart muscle. To enlarge the artery, doctors install a wire mesh stent. The stent can cause scar tissue that again narrows the artery. Stents coated with an anti-inflammatory drug slows scar tissue growth and the narrowing of the arteries it causes.

One of the most frustrating and time-consuming tasks legal professionals face when working on malpractice, product liability, personal injury, workers compensation, or other medical-related legal cases is collecting, organizing and analyzing their clients’ personal medical records, according to a new white paper published by MediConnect Global, Inc.

According to Strategies and Best Practices in Medical Record Retrieval, co-written by Thomas A. Schultz, a partner for Lopez, Hodes, Restaino, Milman & Skikos of Newport Beach, Calif., law firms must use patient medical records more than they ever have in the past for use in litigation.

“Initially it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to obtain medical records for clients,” said Schultz. “But, there are so many things to remember and sequences to go through that one little mistake can delay record retrieval significantly and delay litigation in important cases. This white paper will walk legal professionals through the most critical and strategic steps to obtaining client medical records—and ultimately saving them time and costs.”

The white paper outlines 14 strategic ways law firms can improve the medical record retrieval process making it easier to build and win profitable cases.

Strategies and Best Practices in Medical Record Retrieval is available at the MediConnect Global Web site. www.mediconnect.net

Getting medical records into your organizations can be a trying process—it takes time, costs money, and requires great effort in working with healthcare providers to release the records you need. The more you need, the more difficult it becomes.

At MediConnect Global we’re experts at medical records — that is our focus, our business and no body knows more about them then we do. The purpose of this blog is to take some of the mystery out of our process of obtaining medical records, provide strategic litigation support when using medical records, help increase new policies for insurers, and basically share our expertise and perspectives on what we see that can help us help you.

Our blog is a place where you can get on-going information, ideas and strategies on how you can better use and obtain medical records for your organizations. Posts written by our executives and staff will provide information, tips, techniques, and services that will benefit you. We’ll also cover other important topics such as:

• Strategies and best practices in medical record retrieval
• Universal authorization
• Electronic medical records
• Digitized signatures

Our desire is to create a blog that encourages dialog and discussion about medical records, which means we want to hear from you! Let us know by your comments how you’ve overcome issues in obtaining medical records, your strategies, and what successes you’ve had with medical records. We hope you find the blog useful and come back often.