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The movement to prevent wrong-site or wrong-person surgery got another boost recently when a major health plan announced that on Jan. 1, 2005, it will stop paying for medical procedures involving those egregious errors.
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Los Angeles County officials reported recently that a patient at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center died after a nurse turned down an audio alarm on his vital signs monitor and then failed to notice that he was having a heart attack.
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This case primarily deals with the issues of delay in diagnosis and delay in informing the patient of test results and the appropriate diagnosis. Communication with patients is critical and, if not handled properly, can be disastrous.
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Jury awards for medical malpractice have remained level for the past three years, according to an analysis released recently by Jury Verdict Research, a company in Horsham, PA, that maintains a national database of verdicts and settlements.
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News: A newborn boy exhibited extremely low blood-sugar levels and was diagnosed with intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). Neither a CT scan nor an MRI were ordered, and the baby was discharged within 24 hours of his birth. Three days later, the parents realized something was wrong with their child. A CT scan and MRI showed that the baby had intercranial bleeding and brain damage.
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The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), which advises the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on issues related to administrative simplification under HIPAA, says the agency should show continued patience as covered entities continue to make progress in implementation of the HIPAA transactions and code sets (TCS) requirements.
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University of Michigan (UM) researchers said at the annual scientific session of the American College of Cardiology held March 7-10 in New Orleans that HIPAA has significantly affected their ability to study heart attack patients after they are discharged from the hospital.
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Obstetric claims continue to be among the most catastrophic and costly of malpractice cases, so providers must protect themselves from becoming the deep pocket by enforcing policies that promote patient safety and are consistent with the standard of care, says an attorney and insurance company leader.
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Susan Chmieleski, APRN, JD, CPHRM, director of health care risk management with the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies in Simsbury, CT, offers these tips for keeping the plaintiffs hands out of the hospitals pockets.
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Good Samaritan Hospital (GSH) in Vincennes, IN, uses this policy to establish a nonpunitive environment that encourages employees to report errors.