December 30, 2010
Every year in the United States, mistakes in diagnosis cause an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 wrongful deaths in hospitals, according to researchers. Almost a third of all adverse events reported involve diagnostic errors — diagnoses that are delayed, incorrect or missed entirely. Approximately 5 percent of the time, autopsies find clinically significant medical conditions that […]
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December 28, 2010
The story of a family devastated by two separate mistakes in diagnosis within five years highlights that numerous gaps exist in the diagnostic system for patients to fall through, often with truly tragic results. When Susan S.’s son was born in 1995, he had jaundice, which is a red flag for the possibility of kernicterus, […]
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December 22, 2010
A new study published in the journal Health Affairs suggests that tort reform efforts such as medical malpractice damage caps that are aimed at reducing doctors’ concerns about being sued are unlikely to be effective at deterring “defensive medicine.” The study, partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was performed by researchers from the […]
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December 20, 2010
Harvard Medical School professor and New Yorker contributor Atul Gawande, MD, a general and endocrine surgeon at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, recently presented a lecture in which he pointed out that using patient safety protocol checklists before surgery have been shown to reduce the rate of fatal anesthesia and surgical errors by 45 percent. […]
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December 17, 2010
A full state licensure survey of Jefferson Regional Medical Center conducted in October and November, 2010, found that the facility was not in compliance with the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Rules and Regulations for Hospitals. According to the report, Jefferson failed to promptly report at least 38 hospital-acquired infections; neglected to document informed consent; failed […]
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December 15, 2010
A jury awarded a substantial verdict to the family of a 10-year-old girl who has cerebral palsy due to obstetric negligence. The $13.9 million judgment in the medical malpractice case was so high that the defendants asked for a retrial, arguing that the jury must have been unfairly swayed by their sympathy for the disabled […]
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December 10, 2010
A new study of prescription medication errors at primary care doctors’ offices found that written and verbal communication problems were the most common causes of the errors, followed by knowledge deficits by doctors, pharmacists and patients. Over a 10-week period, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic collected data related to 507 prescription medication events involving patients […]
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December 7, 2010
After a nearly year-long investigation, the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, released a report yesterday concluding that Baltimore cardiologist Mark Midei appears to have surgically implanted cardiac stents into hundreds of patients who didn’t need them. It’s not that Dr. Midei was incompetent. In fact, he was one of the most sought-after cardiologists in […]
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December 2, 2010
Research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) revealed that, despite ten years of effort, there has been no systemic reduction in patient injuries and deaths caused by hospital negligence. In the year 2000, a national study by the U.S. Institute of Medicine found that medical malpractice at hospitals resulted in an […]
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