Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog

Since the 1960s, where over half of patients who died in hospitals were autopsied, autopsies performed in hospitals have decreased to 12-15% of patient deaths in academic medical centers and to about 2% in private hospitals.

The benefits of performing an autopsy are numerous, and include improved care for the living, peace of mind for family members, preventative family medical history information, and less costly litigation of malpractice claims. Thus, private companies such as San Francisco based 1-800-Autopsy are expanding to cover the gap left by hospitals, who in an attempt to save costs avoid performing autopsies where possible.

Another reason for the decrease is that fewer patients are dying in hospitals and more in long term care facilities such as nursing homes, and under hospice care.

For the full article
http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/business/display_article.asp?Nav=ns&lvl2=buss&ArticleID=1518-1786_1939377

"The Medical Malpractice Myth" by Professor Tom Baker debunks the most common myths about medical malpractice, including:

Myth No. 1: "Lawyers, not doctors, cause malpractice"

Myth No. 2: "Lawsuits make health care unaffordable"

Myth No. 3: "Lawsuits deny access to care"

Myth No. 4: "Lawsuits cause doctors to practice wasteful defensive medicine"

Myth No. 5: "Most lawsuits are frivolous"

To purchase:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226036480/sr=8-1/qid=1148480981/ref=sr_1_1/103-8664078-3732605?%5Fencoding=UTF8

A study released today from the New England Journal of Medicine written by Harvard School of Public Health researchers challenges the medical community’s assertion that medical malpractice litigations is rampant and expensive. The highlights of the study include findings that the majority of medical malpractice claims are severe, resulting in death or dismemberment, most claims involve error, and of those few claims that go to trial, most juries are conservative in their verdicts.

The study also found:
• Litigation against hospitals improves patients’ safety
• Medical malpractice insurance premiums for doctors was only a small fraction of expenses

The Center for justice and democracy has published three synopses’ that can be found here:
http://centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_NEJMLegalSystem.pdf
http://centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_NEJMPatientSafety.pdf
http://centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_HealthAffairs.pdf

In the coming weeks, Republicans in the senate plan to introduce legislation deterimental to patients and their family members who are mistreated in nursing homes and hospitals across the country. The bill would cap the total amount of non-economic damages recoverable in a medical malpractice suits at $750,000, and cap the non-economic damages for individual health care providers at $250,000.

To send a letter to your congressman, click on the link below and fill out the form:
http://action.peopleoverprofits.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=10358

Nationwide only 6 percent of deaths are autopsied, with a 40% misdiagnosis rate of this 6%, indicating that hospitals with higher autopsy rates may have lower error rates.

For the full article:
http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/2yh/article.aspx?storyid=62793

Preemption: FDA label preempts state tort law – Bureau of National Affairs responds

In January the Food and Drug Administration issued a new drug labeling rule, stating that its regulation preempts state tort and product liability laws with respect to prescription drugs. The Litigation Group at Bureau of National Affairs, explains why the FDA’s position is legally wrong and bad public policy in the article below.

Download file

In the coming weeks, Republicans in the senate plan to introduce legislation capping the total amount of non-economic damages recoverable in a medical malpractice suit at $750,000, and capping the non-economic damages for individual health care providers at $250,000.

This would have a detrimental affect on the ability of mistreated nursing home patients and their families to receive compensation for maltreatment, as it is often costly to bring these suits and capping the damages would deter attorneys from taking these cases.

Given the lack of state imposed penalties and the rare criminal prosecutions for abuse in nursing home care, the civil justice system is one of the only ways families and patients can vindicate the abuses suffered from neglect at nursing homes.

For the full article:
Capitol Hill Watch - Senate To Delay Votes on Malpractice, Association Health Plan Bills

In response to the proposed medical malpractice cap bills on the way in the legislature, the Center for Justice and Democracy has posted an article showing how med-mal verdicts have resulted in nationwide initiatives and reforms from insurance companies and hospitals to curb negligent treatment.

http://centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_MedMalSuitsSaveLives.htm

USA Today published an article showing that doctors performing mistake surgeries, either on the wrong patient or the wrong body part, is on the rise. These mistakes illustrate why the proposed medical malpractice caps in the senate would harm patients. Essentially, these caps would limit the amount of damages a patient on whom a mistake surgery is performed to $250,000, hardly an equitable sum in such a case.

The study found that while hospitals have implemented safety procedures such as marking the area of the body on which surgery will be performed with a large X, and requiring the nurses to do a final safety check confirming the correct patient and body part, these mistakes occur frequently enough not to ignore.

For the full article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-04-17-wrong-surgery_x.htm

A study released by HealthGrades reported that 1.24 million patient safety incidents occurred between 2002 and 2004, up from 1.14 million between 2000 and 2002, at a cost of $9.3 billion. In addition, 82% of patient deaths arising from these safety incidents were preventable.

For the full report:
Download file

The chart below shows the range of malpractice costs as a percentage of revenues for physician specialties ranging from cardiologists (1.5%) to OB-GYNs (6.7%).

http://www.newsbatch.com/tort-malbyspec.html