Medical Malpractice

Most states have a database that allows the public and reporters to check on the number of medical malpractice claims of a physician and to see how often, if at all, they have been disciplined. Now one of the services has been blocked and consumers and three journalism groups are protesting.

The National Practitioner Data Bank was a reliable national source on medical malpractice and is largely used by reporters and consumers, but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) blocked access, reports Consumer Affairs.

The Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) group is protesting and so is Public Citizen. In a letter to HHS, Public Citizen said taking down the information, which has been publicly available for 15 years, “eliminates an important tool used by health care researchers, patient safety experts, and policy analysts to identify important trends and systematic problems involving the delivery of health care by physicians.”

Public Citizen says that doctor’s names are not even used or exact malpractice amounts. The group uses the information to analyze trends in malpractice and to follow the discipline of doctors who harm patients. Public Citizen has reported the same 5% of doctors are committing the bulk of medical malpractice, so it is important to determine how these doctors are treated by other medical professionals to ensure public safety.

There has been no explanation of why the site was taken down or when it will return. The Obama administration which has promised transparency has made patients less safe by withholding information with no explanation.

The group, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) has made the information available on its website from an August 2011 download which is available here.

Sources: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/09/journalism-groups-make-malpractice-database-public.html;http://www.citizen.org/letter-regarding-npdb-public-use-file-availability-091311; http://www.ire.org/NPDB/

A number of studies have estimated that there are about 98,000 preventable and fatal medical errors performed by healthcare personnel every year. Whether a medication error, a failure to diagnose and treat, or a wrong diagnosis, sometimes people are killed when they put their trust in hospitals, doctors, and nurses. Beside medication errors, medical malpractice can occur at the hands of doctors-in-training, called medical residents, who typically work 24-to-30-hour shifts as part of their training. Now changes have been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education that cap work shifts to 16-hours for first-year medical residents. By the second year, a resident can work up to 24 hours in one shift.

The reason for the long shifts was that a resident could spend a long time with one patient providing continuity of care while the resident had the maximum exposure to training from a licensed physician. But hospitals are ever mindful of medical errors made by those fatigued workers and the cost of medical malpractice lawsuits. A Mayo Clinic survey found the 16-hour limit will not improve fatigue issues.

The maximum work week was limited for medical residents to 80 hours in 2003 and these new limits may make the work week closer to 60 hours. Some believe the change may require residents to spend another year in training. Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group, had petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to oversee the safety of workers in hospitals just as it does at any work site. That is reportedly under consideration.

The Florida medical malpractice lawyers at the Farah & Farah law firm have represented thousands of patients who have been the victim of medical errors and medical malpractice in the state. Our compassionate attorneys will meet with you at your convenience in your time of need and pain and suffering to discuss your options at 1-800-533-3555.

Sources: http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/2011/07/05/20110705scottsdale-medical-residency-hours-studied.html#ixzz1Ths6p623, http://www.citizen.org/hrg1917; http://www.acgme.org/acWebsite/home/home.asp, http://www.acgme-2010standards.org/ and http://www.chron.com/deadbymistake/

With the shift toward computerized medical records to reduce medical malpractice, this story in The Los Angeles Times shows that human error can still influence a patient’s outcome. A baby was born 16 weeks premature in a hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, when a pharmacy technician typed the wrong information into a computer screen. The baby received an automatic intravenous solution of sodium chloride – more than 60 times the amount ordered by the physician. The baby’s heart stopped and he died.

An investigation by the hospital found the label on the IV bag did not reflect its accurate contents. A tech assumed the baby’s high sodium readings were inaccurate. And a technician prepared the order by hand rather than through the hospitals electronic ordering system. This tragedy shows safety risks and medical errors are only as good as the technicians using the computers.

The federal government is providing $23 billion in incentives so providers will purchase electronic medical records or computers that automate drug dispensing and medical processes in hopes of improving medical care and communication, therefore safety. Electronics can alert medical providers about dangerous drug interactions and the recommended medical practices. Unfortunately, humans are not machines and sometimes ignore alerts if they are frequent. Medical systems are poorly designed and don’t necessarily talk to each other.

As of December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received 370 reports of problems with health information technology over the last two years including injuries and deaths. These adverse events reports are voluntary so the numbers may be underestimated. For example:

• The Los Angeles Times report a patient died after the computer network delayed sending an important image
• Vital signs have disappeared from patient monitors
• A wrong name entered electronically means the wrong patient received therapy he was not supposed to receive
• Information about patient allergies went missing from a patient’s medical records after an update

By 2012, an Institute of Medicine panel should issue some recommendations. A number of surveys have show there are about 200,000 avoidable patient deaths from misdiagnosis, drug overdoses, and preventable infection, and this is before the introduction of medical technology and communication systems.

If you or a loved one have been injured by a medical error in Florida, Farah & Farah has a long history of holding wrongdoers accountable for their errors. Call our medical malpractice attorneys in Jacksonville for a complimentary consultation and understand there is a limited time within which to file an action.

Sources: http://www.latimes.com/health/ct-met-technology-errors-20110627,0,2158183.story and http://www.chron.com/deadbymistake/

Patients injured by incidents of medical malpractice in Florida will find it more difficult to hold the hospital or medical staff accountable thanks to a bill recently passed by the Florida Legislature. The bill, which is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, will make it more difficult for victims of medical malpractice to bring medical witnesses from outside Florida to testify as an expert.

House Bill 479 was supported by the medical lobby and it gives the Florida Medical Board the right to discipline doctors who come into the state and provide “deceptive or fraudulent” testimony in a medical malpractice case. The measure is supposed to make it friendlier for doctors to practice in the state by lowering insurance premiums, but in effect, it takes aim at injured patients since many expert witnesses come from out of state.

In 2003, the legislature placed limits on what an injured patient can win in a medical malpractice case, however medical malpractice premiums have not declined, reports the News Service of Florida. Additionally, Medicaid patients who sue a doctor, hospital, or surgical center for pain and suffering will face a $300,000 cap on damages. Bringing these lawsuits is costly and time-consuming and many law firms will decline these cases if the damage award is capped, and that’s the point.

The public seems to agree that reining in malpractice lawsuits is a good thing – until they or a loved one suffer from a medical error with debilitating or fatal results. An estimated 200,000 Americans are killed by medical errors every year, according the report “Dead by Mistake”, an investigation by the Hearst Newspaper chain in March 2010.

If you or a loved one have suffered an injury or an illness as the result of medical malpractice, the Jacksonville medical malpractice lawyers at Farah & Farah believe you should retain the right to hold the wrongdoer accountable and we will assist you in any way we can.

A 72-year-old Jacksonville woman has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Naval Air Station Jacksonville Hospital for what she says was a preventable medical error that left her partially disabled, reports First Coast News. The woman went in to have a mass removed around her kidney last May and was told she’d be in the hospital for a few days. Instead she was there for four months after her attorney says her aorta was accidentally sliced during surgery and someone used surgical staples to put the aorta back together. Knowing something was wrong, the woman tried to go back to the hospital but it was the Memorial Day weekend and most workers were off. As a result, the CT scan that was used to diagnose her problem was delayed for a few days. Eventually she had emergency surgery at another facility but not before blood circulation to her legs was disrupted, causing a spinal cord stroke and permanent damage, leaving her unable to walk.

If you or a family member have suffered an injury or severe adverse effects following a medical procedure or stay at a hospital or other medical facility, the healthcare provider may have committed medical malpractice. The Jacksonville medical malpractice lawyers at the Farah & Farah law firm remind you that even though there is a degree of risk involved with almost every medical procedure and prescription pharmaceutical, the risk is something the patient should have been informed of in order to make a decision about whether or not they wanted to take that risk. If you were not informed of these possibilities and no one seems to be taking your adverse outcome seriously, our medical malpractice attorneys can help you determine if you have a viable medical malpractice lawsuit to file against the hospital and/or healthcare provider for your suffering.

MSN reports that about 90 percent of hospital errors are going unreported by hospitals and federal regulators. A study published in the journal Health Affairs provides a snapshot of just how underreported incidents of medication errors, pressure sores, and staph infections are. A review discovered 354 adverse events like bloodstream infections, pressure sores, and medication errors at three teaching hospitals in the U.S. A system designed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality identified 35 cases at these facilities while the hospitals’ voluntary reporting programs only found four, according to the study. Underestimating the number of medical errors makes it even more difficult to understand and improve quality medical services.

In a 1998 report by The Institute of Medicine “To Err is Human” found that medical errors accounted for 98,000 deaths and 1 million injuries every year in the U.S. Ever since that report there has been an emphasis on improving outcomes and reducing medical errors. A six-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that one in five patients in North Carolina was injured by the hospital or practitioners. Beside a loss of life, medical errors cost $17.1 billion in the U.S. in 2008, reports Bloomberg, quoting a medical claims consulting firm, Milliman Inc.

Medical malpractice can involve a host of mistakes, from over medicating to under-diagnosing and wrong-site surgeries; all of which are preventable. If you or a family member has been a victim of a medical error, the tragedy is only compounded when it is allowed to continue. Contact the Florida medical malpractice attorneys Farah & Farah for a confidential and complete assessment of your case so we can determine how we can help you recover the costs associated with your injury. Remember, there is a limited time within which to bring an action so don’t delay.

Are electronic medical records the answer to reducing medical errors and increasing patient safety? Almost two years ago, President Obama promised $19 billion to help the nation’s hospitals change over to a paperless system but it still hasn’t happened, and now there are some doubts whether or not electronic records are really an improvement over paper ones.

The Institute of Medicine created a 16-member panel, the Committee on Patient Safety and Health Information Technology, to conduct a yearlong study following 260 reports from hospitals of misinformation that led to 44 reported injuries and possibly 6 deaths. Since the information is voluntarily reported, no one knows the real magnitude of the problem.

Computer problems, design flaws, human and computer errors plague the electronic system, according to an article in The New York Times. Also, often patient records have gone missing or been misfiled in another patient’s electronic record. These errors can include drug allergy warnings and blood pressure readings, important information for the next health care provider to have.

More than a decade ago, an Institute for Medicine report, “To Err Is Human” estimated there were as many as 98,000 preventable fatal medical errors every year in the U.S.

RAND Corporation, a think tank and research center, found physicians caught about 2 percent of drug prescribing errors, while 98 percent went un-caught. The RAND report concluded that doctors concerned about medical errors should enact a new set of tools to reduce malpractice risk.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a medical error, a careless doctor or nurse, or a hospital-acquired infection, the Florida medical malpractice attorneys at Farah & Farah will meet to discuss the specifics to determine if there was medical negligence in your case.

Adverse events in hospital care is killing an estimated 15,000 Medicare patients every month, or one in seven hospitalized Medicare patients, according to a government survey released Tuesday, November 16 and reported by USA Today.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducted a survey of adverse events in hospitals studied a representative sample of 780 Medicare patients discharged from hospitals in October 2008. The patients suffered a range of ailments, from infections to death. Of the 780 cases, 12 patients died. Five of those deaths were related to the use of blood-thinning medication. Two other deaths that were medication-related resulted in a patient suffering hypoglycemic coma and over-sedation that led another patient to respiratory failure. The focus of the survey was to have a better understanding of adverse events in hospitals since about 47 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, a government health insurance program for people age 65 and older.

Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins University, is a leading advocate for reducing hospital errors, and was quoted in the article as saying, “We spend two pennies trying to deliver safe health care for every dollar we spent trying to develop new genes and new drugs. We have to invest in the science of health care delivery.” Not much progress has been made in health care delivery since a 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine on medical errors found that about 98,000 patients die a year from medical mistakes, including medication errors, infections, and under-diagnosis.

If you or a loved one has suffered needlessly from the effects of a medical or medication error by your physician, the Florida medical malpractice attorneys at Farah & Farah are available to talk with you about your legal rights.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Thomas Graboys, a doctor at Harvard Medical School, was highly sought out for second options by patients across the United States who had been told they needed to undergo bypass surgery because they had a high risk of suffering a heart attack. Graboys often cited a study done by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which followed patients for five years who were experiencing blood vessels to the heart narrowing. The study found that in most cases, medical therapy was just as effective as surgical therapy.

Graboys also conducted a study of his own, reviewing the medical records of 100 high-risk heart disease patients who were candidates for bypass surgery, but he believed surgery was unnecessary. He found that 76 decided to forgo the surgery; and 18 months later, 75 were alive. Of the 24 patients who decided to have surgery, after 18 months, two had died. While statistically these results are essentially the same, it does show that bypass surgery isn’t right for everyone.

A 1985 article in Health Letter, a publication of Public Citizen, found that between 1971 and 1978, bypass operations performed on men 65 and older rose by an alarming 955 percent. The bypass rate for younger people also rose sharply. In 1985, with bypass surgeries costing about $20,000, Graboys estimated that for every 100 patients who decided, based on a second opinion, to forgo or delay a coronary artery bypass, approximately $1.4 million could be saved in medical expenses.

Many patients aren’t aware that bypass surgery isn’t a cure-all for coronary artery disease. In the surgery, a graft is inserted to be used as a detour around a blocked artery. The graft can narrow over time and require patients to undergo a second operation years later.

The article in Health Letter notes that complication and mortality rates from bypass surgery are low, but not zero. There is a small risk associated with the procedure, such as the risk of heart attack, the risk of dying from the surgery, as well as the risk of post-operative problems occurring, such as infection or stroke. The article also notes that elderly people are at a far greater risk as well. Thus, the conclusion is reached that it is in fact a good idea to “think twice” before undergoing bypass surgery, as fewer deaths could occur and millions if not billions of dollars could be saved if more patients sought second opinions before undergoing surgery.

If your doctor has recommended bypass surgery or another extensive procedure for you, it is a good idea to consult another physician for a second opinion. Ask a local medical school or medical societies which doctors they recommend to treat your injury or illness. Doing so could save you money in the future, even if you have to pay the cost of a second opinion out of pocket if your insurance won’t cover it. If you discover the procedure isn’t necessary, you will not only be spared expenses associated with the operation but the additional risks of unnecessary surgery.

During the past year, there have been embarrassing stories coming out of universities, some of them Ivy League, about medical doctors who are paid consultants for major pharmaceutical companies.

An article on Boston.com stated that Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has uncovered many conflicts between academia and business, and Harvard and Emory physicians have reportedly broken the university rules for reporting the amount of money they have collected from Big Pharma. In some cases, the medical doctor is not just a spokesman for the company at gatherings of other doctors, but promotes the drug to patients, raising all kinds of ethical questions about conflict-of-interest.

Now Harvard University wants to tackle the bad public relations. Harvard Medical School has announced that its 11,000 faculty cannot take personal gifts, travel, and meals at ritzy spas and hotels in exchange for giving promotional talks on behalf of drug and medical device makers.

The university is taking a leadership position so that its image is not tarnished and Harvard is not used to market products. The new policy also requires university personnel to report any payment of at least $5,000. And Harvard says that a firewall will be erected concerning continuing education, often sponsored by industry.

Some doctors will find they make a lot less money at the end of the year. But others welcome not being perceived as salesmen for huge drug and device companies.

Doctors will still be allowed to conduct industry-sponsored research and even sit on the board of a drug or device maker. The bottom line is the patient should come first, not the latest drug or device. To promote a drug that later turns out to be dangerous while taking payments from the drug company, could be perceived as medical malpractice.