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In this matter, the patient was an elderly 73-year-old woman who had suffered a fall at her home in September 2005.
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Patients released from one hospital and readmitted to another within 30 days are more likely to die within the next month than those readmitted to the same hospital, according to a study from Canada.
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Carefully constructed contract language might help shift some liability to the staffing agency when contracted employees divert drugs or otherwise harm patients, says R. Stephen Trosty, JD, MHA, CPHRM, president of Risk Management Consulting in Haslett, MI, and a past president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management in Chicago.
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Methodist Hospital v. German is a Texas malpractice case that questioned whether nurses should be expected to draw medical conclusions from their observations, in addition to passing them on to physicians.
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The case that has sparked debate over liability when drugs are diverted involved a contracted technician who stole pain medication from patients and gave some of them hepatitis C.
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Drug diversion is a longstanding problem for hospitals and can take many forms, says Leilani Kicklighter, RN, ARM, MBA, CPHRM, LHRM, a patient safety and risk management consultant with The Kicklighter Group in Tamarac, FL, and a past president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) in Chicago.
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A ruling in medical malpractice case could offer a new defense strategy. A Texas court established that nurses are not required to make medical conclusions.
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Participating in a health information exchange (HIE) brings the potential for violations of HIPAA. Risk managers should assess security issues when considering HIE participation.
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The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), representing 70 states and territories, approved updated guidelines that constitute a model policy for the safe practice of medicine with telemedicine technology.
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Courts are addressing who ultimately is liable for damage to patients when drugs are diverted. One court case suggests that hospitals might be responsible even if the drugs were stolen by a contract employee supplied by a staffing company.
