HeathGrades studies Medicare patient care in our nation’s hospitals based on 15 indicators of patient safety.
Here are some highlights from the 2009 report representing data from 2005 -2007:
· There were 913,215 total patient safety events among 864,765 Medicare beneficiarieswhich represents 2.3 percent of the nearly 38 million Medicare hospitalizations.
There are a significant number of cases of interest to Tennessee tort lawyers pending before the Tennessee Supreme Court. One of those cases is Cox v. M.A. Primary and Urgent Care Clinic, 2009 WL 230242 (Tenn. Ct. App. 230242 (Jan. 30, 2009).
The issue in the case is the appropriate standard of care for a physician’s assistant. The Court of Appeals ruled as follows:
the services provided by a physician assistant are provided under the supervision of a licensed physician and within the scope of practice of that physician, who is responsible for the treatment rendered by the physician assistant. Consequently, the standard of care applicable to a physician assistant is that of the supervising physician in the community in which the supervising physician practices.
You know that patient safety is not a priority in a hospital when your state regulatory agency orders that cameras be installed in your operating rooms.
Rhode Island Hospital has had five wrong-site surgeries since 2007. Here is how the AP described the last incident:
The latest incident last month involved a patient who was to have surgery on two fingers. Instead, the surgeon performed both operations on the same finger. Under protocols adopted in the medical field, the surgery site should have been marked and the surgical team should have taken a timeout before cutting to ensure they were operating on the right patient, the right part of the patient’s body and doing the correct procedure.
On the afternoon of June 4, 2004, a woman named Patricia Copening driving a SUV ran into a delivery-van driver who had pulled over to repair a flat tire on the highway’s shoulder, killing him at the scene. She also hit another man, causing a head and other injuries.
A lawsuit filed by the victims and their families against Wal-Mart, who dispensed a painkiller prescription to Copening, asks whether drugstores must use information at their disposal to protect the public from potentially dangerous customers. State officials had sent letters to 14 pharmacies in the Las Vegas area warning that Copening could be abusing drugs. The letters were issued after a state-ordered prescription audit identified potential drug abusers, including Copening.
According to this story from Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Nevada pharmacies have been gathering information about prescription drug use, sending it to the state, and receiving letters from the state advising about potential drug abuse since 1997.
Every day, more than 5 Tennesseans die as a result of medical malpractice.
How do I know such a thing? Simple math. The Institute of Medicine has reported that 98,000 people a year die from medical malpractice. Think about it: the death rate from medical malpractice is the equivalent of a large commercial airline crash every day that results in the death of 268 people.
The USA has about 300,000,000 people. Tennessee has about 6,000,000 citizens, or 2% of the total. Assuming that the rate of medical errors that result in death in Tennessee is no better and no worse than anywhere else in the country, 1960 Tennesseans die every year as a result of medical malpractice (2% x 98,000). And that works out to 163 people per month. That is the equivalent of a commuter jet crash in Tennessee every week that results in the death of about 40 people.
A couple of months ago I filed an application with the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys seeking board certification in medical malpractice cases. I have been board certified as a civil trial specialist for over 15 years. In fact, several years ago I served as President of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, the group that certifies civil trial specialists.
For those of you who want to seek certification, here are the criteria:
I have to confess I was a little nervous about the examination. I haven’t taken a test for over 15 years and had no idea what to expect. I was told it was impossible to study for the test, and that advice was correct. The test was at least 50% medicine and the breadth of the subjects covered made studying impractical if not impossible.. I received a break – one series of questions dealt with a medical subject on a case I tried in 2008.
Washington State’s outstanding plaintiff’s lawyer offers great advice to those of us who have lost jury trials.
A sample from "First Aid for Lawyers When They Lose Their Case:"
When trial lawyers who are passionate about their client’s cause lose the case, their pain for the loss of their client is palpable. Dealing with losing is always agony and something we never get used to if we are competitive trial lawyers striving for our client’s rights. I’ve often said: losing hurts worse then winning feels good.
Senator Orin Hatch (R-Nevada) asked the Congressional Budget Office to update its previous findings concerning the effect that restrictions on the rights of patients to hold the health care industry responsible for errors that kill or injure patients ("tort reform").
Here are some of the findings from the report:
Let us put these numbers in perspective. Americans spend over $45 billion per year on pet care.
Yes, handoffs occur in football. But they also occur in healthcare, when one professional transfers the responsibility for caring for a patient to another provider.
Here is how The Doctor’s Company explains handoffs when talking about hospitalists:
The primary objective of a handoff is to provide accurate information about a patient’s care, treatment, current condition, and any recent or anticipated changes. Handoffs are interactive communications allowing the opportunity for questioning between the provider and the recipient of patient information. For hospitals, the handoffs that occur during the time when a patient is moved to another unit, sent for a diagnostic test, or transferred to a new physician can create continuity of care issues.
President Obama announced yesterday that the government will set aside $25 million to support state grants for pilot programs to reduce medical malpractice lawsuits.
ABC News describes the grant process this way:
The Department of Health and Human Services will oversee the process for states to launch and test initiatives that meet the following parameters:
• Put patient safety first and work to reduce preventable injuries;
• Foster better communication between doctors and their patients;
• Ensure that patients are compensated in a fair and timely manner for medical injuries, while also reducing the incidence of frivolous lawsuits; and
• Reduce liability premiums.
Day on Torts