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Kim YH. Mindulness meditation and chronic pain. Altern Med Alert 2004;7(3):33-35.
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Recent cases involving the undertreatment of pain, the over-treatment of pain (and thereby the creation of addicts), and whether drug seekers have any legal rights to pain management have created management problems for the emergency physician. This issue of ED Legal Letter will look at some of these cases. The author addresses recent changes in pain management medications, and readers will be able to develop a practical approach to the patient with pain with fewer worries about the legal consequences.
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Nearly every document that makes any mention of a patient in your facility can be considered protected health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), says Veronica A. Marsich, JD, a shareholder with the law firm of Smith Haughey in East Lansing, MI, specializing in health care issues.
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A post-kidney transplant patient was admitted to a hospital with urosepsis and was placed in the intensive care unit. He was intubated; but when his airway became obstructed, efforts to correct the situation were unsuccessful, and he died. The case settled for $800,000.
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A young man went to an emergency department in the afternoon complaining of discomfort in his throat. Surgery was performed to address an abscess. That evening, after his family had gone home, he suffered from cardiac arrhythmia, went into a coma, and died three days later. His wife and two sons brought suit for wrongful death.
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Medical malpractice insurance premiums are 17.1% lower in states that have capped court awards, although the lack of such tort reform measures in other states does not fully explain recent jumps in what physicians pay to cover the cost of malpractice suits, says Kenneth E. Thorpe, PhD, chairman of the health policy and management department at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta.
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A behavioral health care center in Mississippi is proving that a concentrated effort to reduce restraint can yield great improvements not only for the patients but also for the bottom line of the health care facility.
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While an elderly man on the anticoagulant drug warfarin was waiting to get blood drawn at his physicians office, he was handed some educational materials about the drug.
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Although Zeena Engelke, RN, MS, has multiple job duties as patient education manager of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison, she has managed to incorporate direct teaching into her position as well.
