If you need a heart bypass operation in California, you can now check your doctor's report card before going under the knife. The Office of Statewide Health Planning and Developmen published a report (available at the office's website) that rates 302 surgeons who performed coronary bypass surgeries at 121 hospitals during 2003 and 2004.

The average death rate was 3.08% of more than 40 thousand bypass surgeries (1 in 30) over the 2 year period. The surgeons' ratings factored in degree of difficulty issues like prior heart surgeries, related medical conditions, age, and gender.

This is part of the transparancy movement to give health care shoppers better information to make informed decisions.

Moore's attack of American health care, the documentary film - Sicko, is unfair to say the least. Early in the film, Moore tells health care horror stories - a man who died because a bone-marrow transplant that might have extended his life was refused as "experimental" . A baby with a high fever died when her mother took her to the nearest emergency room where she was refused treatment, rather than taking her to a Kaiser Permanente hospital where she was insured.These and other examples will make anyone viewing the film feel that something must be done about our "broken" health care system.

But from there the film slides downhill in a hurry. Moore pulls a stupid, insensitive prank by boating sick people to Guantanamo, where he knows they won't receive treatment. It gets worse. Moore walks through Havana and gets directions to a health clinic from some people on the street. Subsequently his patients get free treatment in Cuba. As if he didn't know that healthcare is free in Cuba and why hide the part that local officials played in getting American patients treated in Havana?

Moore claims that most Americans want universal health care and will to pay more taxes to achieve it. If so, why not show us what works in other countries and what could be applied to the American system? The difficult stuff is ignored, instead Moore takes us to Canada, England, and France. At each stop, he pulls the same sophomoric act of pretending to be surprised that health care is free in these countries. No mention is made of the delays in treatment or the instances of second-rate care.

Moore is condescending to his audience, thinking of us as stupid enough to be easily satisfied with superficial stories and easy solutions, the very thing of which he accuses the powerful in American business.

As of July 1, Massachusetts citizens must have health coverage or face increasing tax penalties. Those residents earning less than the federal poverty level qualify for free coverage. Additionally, the state subsidizes coverage for those who earn up to three times the poverty level. If an individual earns more than $30,630, or a family of four earns more that $61,950, they can keep their existing coverage or choose from some lower-priced private health plans. Businesses that employ at least 11 workers must offer health insurance or pay annual fees of $295 per worker. The deadline to obtain health insurance is December 31, 2007.

A poll released on Wednesday finds that two-thirds of residents support it. 57% support the law's individual mandate. People who support the law say "it is the right thing to do."

More proof that prescriptions should be submitted by computer rather than handwritten appeared recently online in the Journal Health Services Research. In U.S. hospitals with computerized prescription systems there was a 66 percent drop in prescription errors.

Illegible handwriting and transcription errors are responsible for most medication errors in hospitals. A decimal point in the wrong place can lead to a patient's dosage being 10 times the recommended amount. Filling a prescription for the pain medication Celebrex instead of antidepressant Celexa is one of the nore comon errors because of the similarity of names. Most errors go undetected unless they led to an adverse reaction for the patient. Each year, more than one-half million patients sustain injuries or die in hospitals from adverse drug reactions.

Currently, only about 9 percent of hospitals have computerized prescription systems. It takes 12 to 36 months to implement computerized prescribing system.