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Malpractice News
The Best Offense Is a Good Defense Against Medical Errors
Let's face it, we all make mistakes. Mistakes happen in hospitals, they happen in outpatient clinics, they happen in nursing homes and home care, and they happen in self-care. We as clinicians need to acknowledge that they happen. The challenge is to avoid them, and when mistakes do occur, to prevent them from causing harm to our patients. More people die from errors than from auto accidents (which cause 43,000 deaths a year). More people die from errors than breast cancer (that's 42,000). More people die from errors than from AIDS (that's 16,000). But if you think about the investment that we're making in research to understand why these errors are made and what we can do to prevent them, that investment pales in comparison to what we're spending on breast cancer or AIDS.
The IOM report is getting a lot of attention. Much of the attention focuses on "horror stories"—such as the amputation of the wrong leg or fatal drug overdoses. But most errors are less obvious. They may be diagnostic errors. Or they may be surgical mistakes—such as a nicked artery or nerve. Or there may be errors in drug treatment, such as a patient being prescribed two medications that interact to cause an adverse reaction, when one drug could easily have been substituted with an appropriate alternative. In fact, research suggests that half of all adverse drug reactions are preventable.
Or patients themselves can be responsible for errors, such as when patients cannot read the dosage instructions on medicine bottles. Recent research shows that 20 percent of patients are not literate enough to read, understand, and follow their prescription directions.Remember that science shows us that errors are a systems problem. The solution requires a system-wide response from everyone involved in health care. The entire health care team must meet the challenge of working to reduce errors.
Many people don’t know what expenses are typically included in a settlement
A typical medical malpractice claim will include compensation for pain and suffering, payment of medical expenses for treating the injury caused by the malpractice and reimbursement for any past, present or future financial losses that you have incurred as a result of the malpractice. However, this varies by State.
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News about Medical Malpractice cases in North Dakota and nationwide:
Definition:
The defendant must owe a legal duty to the victim, the defendant breached that duty, the breach was the cause of an injury to the victim, there must be an injury. In most cases, there must be a physical or financial injury to the victim, but sometimes emotional distress, embarrassment, or dignitary harms are adequate for recovery.
Stipulation
Definition:
An agreement, admission or concession made in a judicial proceeding by the parties or their attorneys, thus relieving a party of its obligation to produce evidence in support of an argument or allegation.
Confidentiality
Definition:
The principle that prohibits physicians from disclosing confidential comments made to them by patients unless required to do so by law. The law may require physicians to violate patient confidentiality if the patient poses a serious threat to his or her own health and the well-being or that of others.
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