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Missouri Appellate Court Reverses Trial Court’s Grant of Summary Judgment After Finding that Injured Patient’s Evidence Could Show Medical Negligence of Chiropractor
In a medical negligence case, an appellate court in Missouri recently reversed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment to a chiropractor defendant on the basis that there were factual issues that should have been decided by the jury. After a patient sued her chiropractor when she suffered three broken ribs during a treatment, the chiropractor defendant claimed that the patient was claiming medical negligence by pointing to her injury rather than showing that the chiropractor was negligent or that the chiropractor’s alleged negligence caused her injury.
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New Jersey Appellate Court Affirms Dismissal of Complaint After Failure to Offer an Affidavit of Merit in Both Specialties of Treating Physician
Recently, a New Jersey appellate court affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of a medical malpractice plaintiff’s complaint for lacking an affidavit of merit, which often is a requirement in malpractice suits. The appeal of the trial court’s decision revolved around the sufficiency of an affidavit of merit in a situation where a defendant physician’s answer to the medical negligence complaint stated involvement in two specialties, but the plaintiff provided an affidavit of merit from a physician board-certified in only one of those specialties.
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Is Text Messaging Ever HIPAA-Compliant?
Text messaging is so convenient and common that it is tempting to use it for communicating with patients. But HIPAA applies, and the use of text messaging is allowed only when meeting some strict requirements.
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Patient Termination Requires Right Steps, Good Documentation
Terminating a relationship with a patient or banning someone from a hospital is never done lightly, and, fortunately, it does not happen often. But when it is necessary, healthcare organizations must tread carefully to ensure that the patient is afforded other opportunities and that the potential liabilities are minimized.
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Patient Advocacy System Shown to Lower Malpractice Costs
A patient advocacy reporting program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center was associated with a significant decrease in malpractice claim costs for high-risk clinicians in an orthopedic practice network, suggesting a strategy that other hospitals can employ.
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HITECH Audits Return: OCR Promises Enforcement Changes for HIPAA
The Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) has reopened the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) audit program and will begin audits of HIPAA-regulated entities later in 2024. The audits will focus on the Security Rule, particularly the requirements for security risk analyses and risk management.
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Ethical Concerns for Study Participants with Opioid Use Disorder
Individuals with opioid use disorder are a vulnerable population who face some unique risks when participating in research.
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Some Hospitals Still Restrict Family Presence
Many hospitals still have not lifted restrictions on family presence during resuscitation/invasive procedures that were implemented during the pandemic, raising ethical concerns. A year out from the end of the global pandemic, it is time for family presence to be reestablished to reflect a culture of patient and family-centered care, according to an updated practice alert from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.
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Ethical Concerns if AI Tools Assist Surrogate Decision-Makers
Surrogate decision-makers are faced with a formidable task: To make decisions based on the ethical principle of substituted judgment. “The idea is supposed to be, when these surrogates are making decisions, they are not supposed to choose what they want,” says David Wendler, MA, PhD, head of the section of research ethics in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. The surrogates instead must ask: What decision would the patient make?
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Financial Conflicts Cloud Joint Replacement Technology Study Findings
As an associate editor for an orthopaedic journal, James A. Browne, MD, noticed that an increasing number of economic analyses were being published dealing with new technologies in joint replacement. “These studies, when sponsored by industry or conflicted with financial interests, are very likely to support the sponsor’s new technology — and may be little more than a sophisticated marketing effort,” concludes Browne.