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Everyone in health care still is sorting through exactly what the final Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act rule means, and apparently the surveyors working for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are no different.
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Sentinel events at Childrens Hospital Boston have been traced to poor communication between residents and attending physicians, prompting a federal investigation and a plan by the hospital to overhaul how the two groups interact. The hospital is responding to the tragedies with a plan designed to make sure that attending physicians dont leave the younger physicians with too much responsibility by poorly communicating.
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The U.S. District Court in Cheyenne, WY, has awarded $50,000 to a woman stuck by a used needle while visiting a patient at one of Banner Health Systems hospitals in that state. A hospital employee had left the needle lodged in a heat register.
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The University of Illinois Hospital has paid $2.3 million to settle a lawsuit that charged it and two other school-affiliated hospitals with manipulating patients diagnoses to get them new livers.
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While recovering from emergency surgery, a 71-year old patient developed decubitus ulcers acute enough to cause nerve damage and necessitate plastic surgery. The hospital staff and two attending physicians failed to closely monitor the elderly patient during recovery despite his known underlying complications, which included alcohol dependency and heavy smoking.
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A 16-year-old high school football star was in the back seat of a car when the driver lost control and ran off the road. He underwent emergency surgery at a hospital for a ruptured stomach. However, the treating physicians and staff failed to diagnose and treat his fractured spine. The delay in treatment and failure to immobilize the patient resulted in the teen-ager being permanently paralyzed.
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The recent lawsuits filed against charitable hospitals has brought attention to the issue of collections practices in health care and made them a major risk, says Scott Becker, JD, a partner in McGuireWoods LLPs Chicago office and one of the co-chairs of the firms health care practice.
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Responding to the lawsuits against charitable hospitals, the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania recently provided its member hospitals with a comprehensive set of guidelines addressing charity care, financial aid, and collection practices.
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A Denver hospital is facing strong criticism and threats of a lawsuit after emergency department staff photographed an unconscious patients genitals and left the photo on the mans digital camera.
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Incidents of perinatal death or permanent disability have declined steadily in recent years, but the tragedy still occurs too often, reports the Joint Commission. JCAHOs most recent Sentinel Event Alert addresses this issue with recommendations for lowering the risk even further.