-
After an extraordinary 14 years of litigation, a Broward County, FL, jury recently entered a $30 million verdict against a hospital and an obstetrician for damages arising out of the birth of a child with brain damage.
-
A middle-aged man was taken to the hospital complaining of pain in his lower back and abdomen. The man was given pain medication and a muscle relaxant and discharged. After his pain persisted, the man went to another hospital, where he was given anti-inflammatory medications and discharged. A few days later, the man was taken by ambulance back to the first hospital, where he suffered cardiac arrest and died.
-
Sometimes the most effective strategies for those problems that plague every health care facility are not high tech and don't require a highly paid consultant.
-
Everyone knows you should never alter medical records after the fact, right? But if it is so clear to everyone, why do medical malpractice defense attorneys repeat that rule like a mantra, and why do they all have plenty of anecdotes about defendants trying to improve the medical record?
-
It can be a common occurrence for risk managers, but it still makes your heart skip a little when you learn that there is a new claim or lawsuit against your facility. What do you do?
-
Police say an employee of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta stole jewelry from two patients in cases that garnered substantial media attention in the community.
-
Problems related to automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) include both product design flaws and human errors, according to the 2007 ADC Survey from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Horsham, PA. There has been some improvement since the first ADC survey in 1999, but not enough.
-
Automation and high-tech systems often are touted as the solution for medication errors, but the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Horsham, PA, is warning that you could be substituting one type of medication error for another when you use automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs).
-
Reducing falls is a constant worry for risk managers, and sometimes it seems there are no new ideas. But many health care providers are finding the most success with an approach that includes a wide range of efforts, everything from special equipment and monitoring systems to making sure every employee is empowered to prevent falls.
-
It's a constant worry for risk managers: Do you have enough physicians taking emergency department (ED) call duty? Will those on call actually respond when summoned? Are they taking ED calls from other hospitals at the same time?