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Recent research from Harvard University suggests that the adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) could have a positive effect on reducing malpractice liability.
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The Harvard study suggesting lower malpractice risk from using electronic medical records (EMRs) must be viewed with some skepticism, says Peter Hoffman, JD, an attorney with Eckert Seamans in Philadelphia.
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With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) expanding the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's (HIPAA) patient health information privacy and security protections beyond what most already considered a compliance nightmare, some legal and privacy experts are saying the expansion may have taken compliance from merely difficult to nearly impossible to achieve.
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Patients and air ambulance crews are dying at an alarming rate because the air ambulance helicopter industry has little oversight and poor organization, according to a recent safety review.
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Most hospitals still have not implemented standards proven to improve quality and save lives, even though it has been 10 years since the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) landmark report on the failure of U.S. hospitals to adequately protect patient safety. That is the conclusion of the 2008 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, which shows that only 7% of hospitals fully meet Leapfrog medication error prevention standards, and low percentages of hospitals are fully meeting mortality standards.
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A woman who suffered from long-standing depression presented to the hospital seeking an adjustment of her antidepressant medication. During hospitalization, she suffered seizures. The hospital was unable to determine the etiology of the seizures and transferred the woman to another hospital in the area. Upon transfer, she underwent an examination and laboratory testing.
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A man slipped and fell while getting out of his hospital bed, causing him to suffer a fractured hip and leg. The man and his wife sued the hospital for negligence, claiming that he had not been fitted with "gripper socks" and that nurses had not responded after the man had attempted to call them with the call light.
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The deaths of three young cancer patients within a month of each other at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, FL, were caused by toxic mold released during a hospital construction project, according to a lawsuit brought by the parents.
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High-powered Tampa, FL, attorney Steve Yerrid, JD, says the three children at the center of the lawsuit against St. Joseph's Hospital did not have to die from toxic mold. If only the hospital had taken the right steps to control the risks associated with a construction project, the children might have survived, he says.
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Most health care providers are more at risk for mold toxicity than the Florida hospital now facing lawsuits related to pediatric deaths, says one mold suppression expert.
