Healthcare Risk Management – September 1, 2005
September 1, 2005
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Rise in medmal premiums prompts dispute over potential of profiteering
Malpractice insurers are stinging from charges of profiteering from insurance premiums by new data showing costs rising dramatically as claims drop. -
Report suggests claims are falling as rates keep rising
These are the key findings in the recent report from the Center for Justice and Democracy in New York City. -
Median awards on an upward trend in cases
Plaintiff awards for medical malpractice cases are on the rise, according to a report from Jury Verdict Research. -
Technology is but one solution to e-mail security
Electronic safeguards for e-mail in health care, like sophisticated encryption systems, are one piece of the security puzzle but cannot be the entire solution, according to the experts. -
JCAHO issues alert on fatal misuse of a powerful drug
Patients undergoing chemotherapy to fight leukemia and lymphoma are sometimes being accidentally injected with a powerful cancer-fighting drug in an incorrect way that results in death or permanent paralysis. -
Hospital uses high-tech system to check for errors
Every year, pharmacists at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor prepare a million doses of medicines for thousands of young and often very ill patients. -
Joint Commission starts random validation surveys
If you enjoyed your triennial survey, here's a chance to do it all over again the next week. -
Reader Question: Reviewing trouble spots ensures good compliance
Question: I think we've done a good job of educating our staff about compliance with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), but I still worry that someone will slip up. -
Legal Review and Commentary: Denial to hospital admittance results in a suicide; $242,500 settlement in Texas
News: A man diagnosed with bipolar disorder became extremely depressed. Believing that he required full-time professional care, his family physician arranged for admittance to a psychiatric hospital. -
Legal Review and Commentary: Post-surgical drugs get the blame in $500,000 verdict
News: After undergoing brow-lift plastic surgery, a young woman blamed her subsequent delirium on the adverse effects of the post-surgery drugs she was prescribed. -
HIPAA Regulatory Alert: Ruling on criminal prosecution under HIPAA raises furor
... only covered entities and those people rendered accountable by general principles of corporate criminal liability may be prosecuted under criminal enforcement provisions of the HIPAA Administrative Simplification section. -
HIPAA Regulatory Alert: Hospitals don't want fined entities identified
The American Hospital Association (AHA) says it is "troubled" by a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plan to publicize the identity of those covered entities given civil monetary penalties under enforcement of HIPAA's administrative simplification section. -
HIPAA Regulatory Alert: Transaction standard is far from projected uniformity
The HIPAA transaction standards have not resulted in the uniformity and efficiency envisioned when HIPAA was adopted.