Personal Injury Law

Hospitals Have Poor Performance in Safety Areas

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

A detailed safety analysis conducted on behalf of Hearst Newspapers found that at least one in six of the studied facilities had preventable deaths. These occurred from common procedures, including cases in which medical instruments were left inside patients and transfusions were done incorrectly. Many hospitals have poor performance in the safety indicators developed in recent years by federal health researchers. The study found that doctors fudge death certificates, leaving out information that would point to medical errors as a prime cause of death. One woman was reported to have died of pneumonia on her death certificate. However hospital records show she initially went to the hospital for a shot of diuretic to treat leg swelling and then contracted an infection which caused the pneumonia. The CDC is aware of the inaccuracies in death certificates. They stated that medical error is ?often not reported? because it gives doctors problems down the road. Some groups say that a nationwide reporting system is too expensive and too difficult to implement. However, it may decrease the amount of medical malpractice cases. To read more about the medical errors, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on August 14, 2009 (boomark / email).