Distracted Walking: Using a Cell Phone and Walking Is Risky

From the NYTimes:

"Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.

But phones aren't just distracting drivers; they make pedestrians inattentive too.

Distracted walking combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.

Examples include a 16-year-old boy who walked into a telephone pole while texting and suffered a concussion; a 28-year-old man who tripped and fractured a finger on the hand gripping his cellphone; and a 68-year-old man who fell off the porch while talking on a cellphone, spraining a thumb and an ankle and causing dizziness."





References:
Forget Gum. Walking and Using Phone Is Risky. NYTimes.
Video: Stop texting while driving. Terrifying. All drivers should watch this.

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

AT&T Don't Text While Driving Documentary (video).

The risky side and the cautious side of me

David Spiegelhalter's proper title is Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk. He is in two minds (literally) about playing it safe or chucking caution to the wind. Decisions, decisions!? Are bacon sandwiches really that dangerous and is it wise to drive when you love cycling? David shows us how to use statistics to face up to life's major risks.

Link via Flowing Data.

Lawyers Opinion: Risky Business - Tweeting the Symptoms of Social Media

From Risky Business - Tweeting the Symptoms of Social Media (PDF):

"To date there are at least 540 hospitals in the United States utilizing social media tools: Hospitals account for 247 YouTube channels, 316 Facebook pages, 419 Twitter accounts, and 67 blogs.

The number of individual and independent medbloggers is in the thousands.

In December of 2009, a hospital employee was forced to resign because of a single tweet.

On October 29, 2008, a patient provided what is believed to be the first live tweet from the operating room. “Bad bad stick. Ow ow ow ow ow.”

In response to online physician rating websites, like Yelp, RateMD, and others, a company now offers physicians an antidefamation service, including contract provisions restricting a patient’s right to make negative comments on rating websites.

There are a number of other scenarios that could lead to liability. For example, what happens if an “off-duty” physician responds to a health question by a neighbor while doing yard work? Suppose the same exchange occurs through online “messages” between a physician and one of the physician’s “friends” on Facebook, creating an electronic record of the exchange that could potentially support the existence of a physician-patient relationship, thereby creating certain liability arising therefrom (e.g., HIPAA, medical malpractice, patient abandonment, etc.).

The authors of a National Law Journal article warn that bosses who “friend” are begging to be sued."

References:

AHLA Connections: Legal Implications of Health Care Social Media.
"If a patient bashes a physician on rating websites there is little that doctor can do", says Medscape, 2012.
Guide to Winning Your Malpractice Lawsuit - Medscape http://buff.ly/UTaWOq

Image source: public domain.