Hospital negligence occurs when a hospital employee, such as a nurse or resident physician, fails to comply with accepted standards of medical care. Residents make important decisions in many patients' care, even though they are not fully trained physicians. Many mistakes by residents occur as a result of fatigue, inexperience or misplaced arrogance. Since residents are usually employed by the hospital [...]
Caregiver fatigue can result in hospital negligence. A recent study shows that hospitalists are being overworked to the detriment of patient safety. There has been an increasing trend toward the use of hospitalists to provide primary care services to hospitalized patients. Hospitalists are typically internists or family practice physicians who provide general medical care but restrict their [...]
Surgical errors occur with alarming frequency. The journal Surgery recently reported a survey of one particularly disturbing category of surgical error -- so-called "never events." Never events were so named because, pursuant to a list created by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, these events should never occur. In the surgical context, never events include wrong-site surgery [...]
Ohio Surgical errors occur on a regular basis. Why did the surgery fail? Why did the patient die? Why has recovery following the surgery taken so very long? Why was a foreign object left behind? WHY ISN'T ANYONE EXPLAINING TO ME WHAT WENT WRONG? Behind the wall of silence in healthcare are the unanswered questions [...]
Hospital negligence comes in various shapes and sizes. A clear case of medical negligence occurs when a doctor orders a test but the test is never performed or the results go unread, and the patient dies or is injured as a result of the missed test result. The Archives of Internal Medicine recently published an article showing that physicians [...]
Hospital infections were included by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in its list of "never events." Never events are preventable complications that arise in a hospital setting. When they occur, CMS has taken the hard-line stance that it will not reimburse hospitals for costs associated with such an event. A recent article by the American [...]
I recently read a great article about surgical errors, 10 Red Flags in General Surgical Malpractice Cases, by another medical malpractice lawyer, Todd Hendrickson. The article lists 10 post-operative developments that can be overlooked by busy surgeons, but should raise concerns. When a surgeon ignores a red flag, there may be grounds for a medical negligence claim [...]
Hospital infections are an increasing problem in the U.S. According to a study published in Gastroenterology, the number of deaths from one such infection, Clostridium difficile infection (also called c diff or c. difficile), have increased from 2195 in 2002 to 7251 in 2009 - a 230% increase. C. Diff is now the 9th leading cause of [...]
Surgical errors sometimes occur before the surgery even takes place. Before an operation, surgeons perform a preop assessment of the patient to determine whether they are a candidate for the operation. Patients must meet certain indications to be considered for surgery. In addition, the patient must be assessed to determine whether they are fit enough for [...]
Delayed diagnosis of hospital infections can lead to a progression of disease and an adverse outcome. Left untreated, infections can progress from a local problem to sepsis, a systemic response to the infection. With further progression, sepsis can turn to shock, organ failure and, ultimately, death. Likewise, a delay in treatment can make it necessary to [...]