Medication errors haven’t gone away

Meds
June 29, 2017

A 10-year analysis of medical malpractice cases indicates that medication errors continue to represent a significant risk to patients and health care providers, despite myriad efforts to eliminate that risk. For events that occurred beginning in 2003 (12 percent) to those from 2012 (12 percent) the proportion of cases alleging a medication error was, essentially, unchanged. Raised awareness, advances in technology, and millions of dollars directed at improving the medication …

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Medication errors haven’t gone away

Doctors, stay safe: The malpractice implications of social media

Social media
July 6, 2014

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Is the phone in your pocket increasing your risk of being sued for medical malpractice?

As more and more of our daily lives is being recorded and shared — with or without our permission — health care is no longer a fully safe harbor of privacy and consent. For reasons both clinical and social, in practices both ethical and ill-advised, individuals are …

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Doctors, stay safe: The malpractice implications of social media

Why always saying yes could be dangerous for you and your patient

Physician
August 14, 2012

Encouraging patients to be more engaged, may also encourage more people to go beyond assertive to demanding care unsupported by good clinical judgment. Of course, physicians worry that saying “no” to a patient increases their risk of being disliked, dismissed, or even sued for medical malpractice.

Greater transparency in health care means patients are more aware of options for screening, testing, procedures, and medications—often via direct advertising or public service campaigns. …

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Why always saying yes could be dangerous for you and your patient

Engaging patients provides another layer of safety protection

Physician
May 9, 2012

A recent New York Times article predicted that accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar care consortiums will completely upend health care delivery in the United States by 2020. While that’s provocative speculation, physicians and other care providers practicing in population management entities do need to ramp up their ability to explain new health care delivery models to their patients. In doing so, they will want to pay particular attention to increased expectation …

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Engaging patients provides another layer of safety protection

Malpractice risks with special needs patients

Physician
August 26, 2011

Can you properly examine and treat a 400lb patient in your office setting? How about a four-year-old in your ED? A deaf woman in Labor and Delivery? An 82-year-old in the endoscopy clinic? Do patients who present with challenges beyond their immediate health issues increase your risk for a diagnostic or treatment error?

Once-accepted practices, e.g., jerry-rigging adult medical equipment for a toddler, guesstimating the weight of a patient who exceeds …

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Malpractice risks with special needs patients

Do non-compliant patients really sue their doctors?

Physician
July 14, 2011

The non-compliant patient who sues his physician for an adverse clinical outcome is a storied malpractice bogeyman. After failing to follow a screening regimen, show for appointments, undergo recommended tests, make health-related lifestyle changes, or take their medications, these patients (now plaintiffs) have the audacity to blame the doctors and nurses for not being adequately clear or assertive.

Are they real?

Yes and no. Not every “difficult” patient is a potential …

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Do non-compliant patients really sue their doctors?

Emotionally supporting physicians sued for malpractice

Physician
June 6, 2011

A physician or nurse who receives a Summons and Complaint regarding a medical malpractice suit also receives pointers about whom to talk to, what to say, what not to say, and whom not to talk to. Despite some emphatic precautions, the appropriate advice to those malpractice defendants is not strictly “shut up and lawyer up.”

To help defendant clinicians cope, the answer …

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Emotionally supporting physicians sued for malpractice

Physicians coping after a medical error

Physician
May 10, 2011

A failed treatment, a surgical complication, a medical error, a patient death. When the going gets tough, even the toughest clinicians should get help.

Physicians and nurses who feel personally responsible for a medical error or a patient’s injury face an immediate quandary—their next patient. In the midst of your angst and guilt, do you suck it up and soldier …

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Physicians coping after a medical error