Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plays a critical role in keeping consumers safe. There is a reasonable expectation that a product that is bought at a store will be safe for use. That expectation is even more secure when it comes to products that are used by medical professionals in critical health care processes. A patient does not wander through a store to select which medical products are used in their care. From hip implants and needles, to medication and IV pumps, patients rely on the choices of their doctors and care of regulatory agencies like the FDA to ensure that dangerous products are not allowed.

Our entire caregiving process is based on this trust. That is why we must be incredibly vigilant about holding designers and manufacturers accountable when products actually harm patients unnecessarily. In the aftermath of dangerous products, medical device lawsuits are common to ensure that accountability is provided and those affect receive redress.

Yet, ideally the damage would be prevented altogether. That is where regulatory agencies are in control. It is critical that the FDA act aggressively to ensure product manufacturers make choices, if necessary, so that dangerous products are pulled from use in a timely manner.

Dangerous IV Pumps
For example, recently the FDA issued another warned to a company that produces a line of IV pumps. As reported in Chicago Business, Hospira, Inc. received a letter from the Administration two weeks ago which included findings from the FDA’s inspection of the company’s headquarters earlier in the year.

The problems included in the letter mostly relate to serious concerns about the safety of pump designs. On top of that, however, the FDA was concerned about the lack of sufficient protocols in place to take “corrective and preventative” action as part of an overall safety plan. There were also concerns about lack of proper reporting following adverse events related to products that the company makes.

In addition, the findings included some worrisome flaws, including concerns about the company’s planned phase out of IV pumps like the Symbiq, GemStar, and others. The company plans to replace those pump with “remediated Plum A+ pumps.” This entire process will cost upwards of $350 million, and FDA officials are unsure of the ultimate effect on patient safety.

Profits Over Patients - Always Unacceptable
Obviously many varied business decisions factor into choices by companies like Hospira. The business of medical device design and manufacture is quite complex, and it is easy to get lost in the details. However, the underlying principle of patient safety must be prioritized first, above all else. While any consumer product can cause harm, those created specifically for medical care pose an increased risk of serious adverse consequences when they are not designed with safety in mind or manufactured improperly.

We have many examples of dangerous products that are not pulled from the market quickly enough (like DePuy hip implants), allowing more patients to be harmed than necessary. We should never allow that to happen again, and so it is encouraging to see the FDA act with vigilance in mind.

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Do Negligent Hospitals Actually Profit From Malpractice?

Leading Cause of Litigated Medical Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

Many aspects of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) are set to take effect this year. Expectedly, this is causing certain groups to make dubious claims about the effect the law will have on businesses and the “tyranny” of requiring health insurance. Those who support the law are doing a decent job of reminding that the goal of the law is actually to lower costs--and there are signs that the goal will be met over the long-term.

But it is also crucial not to forget a second aspect of the law--actually improving patient safety. As med mal attorneys, this is a topic that we frequently discuss. It remains surprising that more attention is not placed on actual health outcomes, because many different policy decisions-at the federal, state, local, and institutional level--affect the quality of services that are provided.

More Transparency
The need to re-focus on patient safety was the topic of an op-ed recently published in the New York Times. The article mentions how tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of medical patients die every year in way that could have been prevented if error-free medical care was provided. As with similar industries, the best way to fix the problem is to shine a spotlight on it. Analyzing the scope and details of the problem and providing incentives to enact changes are the keys to improvement.

Even those who are virulently against preserving litigation rights for injured patients admit that patient safety begins with transparency. That is why it is important to point out that new research is showing that, far from acting as any sort of impediment, proper use of medical malpractice lawsuits actually increases patient safety transparency.

Some argue that the tort system caused doctors and hospitals to “clam up” when mistakes were made out of fear that honesty would affect their legal liability. But, the evidence suggests something far different. As the NYT editorial pointed out: “the openness and transparency promoted by patient safety advocates appear to be influencing hospitals’ responses to litigation risk.”

New Patient Safety Research
The author--a law professor--conducted a survey on hospital risk management, legal claims, and quality improvement. those surveys included some in-depth interviews that yield helpful information about how legal risk actually influence patient safety.

Instead of being secretive, more and more health care professional are becoming more honest with patients and their families following adverse medical events. This is great news for those who care about honesty and accountability in the medical setting. We can only hope that the trend continues.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the new research were the finding on the causes of the change in mindset among healthcare professionals. Most notably, being honest simply works in the hospitals best interest in the long-run. By admitting error and being more open to fair settlements early on, facilities are able to save on legal costs and minimize the overall cost of dealing with errors.

But not only that, facilities are actually using malpractice lawsuit data to identify risk areas. In other words, the lawsuits are key pieces of information which show where improvement is needed, allowing facilities to better target their quality efforts. Far from being a deterrent, the legal system therefore plays a critical role in the overall patient safety regime.

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Settlement in Stent Malpractice Case

More Federal Medical Billing Transparency On the Way?

The Clinical Advisor reported recently on the end of a high-profile medical malpractice case that made headlines across the country. The situation involved a cardiologist who was accused of performing a mountain of unnecessary surgical procedure to implant stents into patient hearts. The patients agreed to the surgeries while assuming that they were necessary per the doctor’s recommendations. However, it was eventually learned that many of those stents may not have been medically necessary--the doctor was only urging them because of his financial interest in performing the operation.

Mid-Trial Settlement
The doctor, and owner of a medical clinic in Maryland, was accused of performing the hundreds of unnecessary stent procedures over a two year period--between 2007 and 2009. Eventually the doctor’s medical license was revoked for his conduct. However, it has taken the remaining years for the civil lawsuits filed in connection with the matter to make their way through the system.

Six weeks ago, the matter began at trial. Most trials do not necessarily go that long, but considering the number of patients affected, the length of the problem, and the complexity of proving this sort of malpractice, a large amount of information needed to be presented to the jury.

Interestingly, just this week, even after the lengthy trial was already well underway, the matter was abruptly ended with a settlement. As is frequently the case, the terms of the settlement are confidential, and it is not known how much the matter was settled for. What is known is that it resolves the claims for at least 250 patients who had individually filed suit against the doctor and a hospital where he worked. That is not the end to the matter, however, as there remain at least 45 other lawsuits still pending which are connected to these same claims.

Unnecessary Surgery Malpractice
This particular case has garnered significant attention both because of the number of affected patients as well as because of the unique nature of the alleged malpractice. Of course, errors like failing to provide a timely diagnosis or committing a medication mistake are what most normally think of when the words “medical malpractice” is mentioned. Far fewer appreciate that something like ordering a surgery that isn’t needed can also constitute malpractice.

One need only return to the fundamental principles of negligence to understand how it works. A party can be held liable in a civil court when they owe a duty of care (this always is true in a doctor-patient relationship), and breach that duty while causing injury. The breach occurs when the doctor does not act in a reasonable way when compared with other prudent doctors in the area. Ordering a surgery that isn’t needed is therefore a breach. One complexity in these cases is meeting the final elements of “causing injury.” If the stent does not lead to obvious damage, is there harm? The answer is usually yes, because any surgery comes with risks and potential problems down the road. Even opening oneself up to future injury unnecessarily is an “injury” that can be compensated via civil lawsuit.

For assistance with any medical malpractice matters in Chicago or throughout Illinois, please contact the IL malpractice attorneys at our firm for help.

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Doctor Faces Several Med Mal Lawsuits

New Allegations of Over-Stenting Against Doctor

DePuy hip implants trials and settlement negotiations are underway. Though, the legal ramifications of the defective hip implants will likely continue for a while into the future. That is because there are so many who have been affected, and because some patients may eventually be harmed in the future. The defective metal-on-metal hips designed by DePuy Orthopaedics were only recalled a pair of years ago, and ill-effects sometimes take several years to develop. That means that some patients may seem fine now, but suffer injury as a result of the defect down the road.

The DePuy lawsuits are obviously intended to ensure those harmed receive fair compensation for their losses, including medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering. In addition, however, many DePuy injury lawyer are also working to ensure that lessons are learned from this situation so that fewer dangerous medical devices make their way into patient bodies in the future. One key aspect of that battle is fixing the current process by which those products are approved by federal regulators and become legal to use.

Altering the FDA Approval Process
Thomas Reuters recently published a story that explores how many attorneys working for plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the manner by which these products achieve administrative approval. The calls are being made in response to a wide range of metal-on-metal implants which have subsequently been recalled, including DePuy products.

Right now, the current rules allows manufacturers of these products to go through an “alternative” process by which they only need to show certain similarity between the new product and one that was already on the market. This avoids the need to do extra testing, like clinical studies, to ensure that the product is safe and will not cause undue harm to patients.

It looks like that process will change in the future. The FDA announced in January that manufacturers would no longer be able to avoid a more extensive review. This change would apparently apply to both risky products still on the market and any new products that manufacturers may want to introduce down the road. A letter last month from the American Association for Justice, voiced support for a chance in procedure.

Access to Justice Concerns
Yet, in supporting the change in FDA rules, the president of the AAJ noted that it was critical the alteration did not affect the civil justice rights of those harmed by the products. The concern was that manufacturers of these devices might use premarket approval retroactively in an attempt to defeat a personal injury claim that was filed before the change in approval process. Those working on suits for the manufacturers have hinted that they may try to use FDA approval under the new process to beat back injury claims of those hurt by the implants in the past few years. The possibility of this legal tactic working was reinforced by an older U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding liability following full FDA market approval.

To avoid this, the AAJ is urging the FDA in include language in the final rule to ensure plaintiffs do not have their claims thrown out.

Our DePuy implant lawyers will be following these developments closely, and working to ensure the rights of injured patients and their families are respected every step of the way.

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FDA Taking Another Look at Safety of Robotic Medical Tools

Significant Compensatory Damages Awarded in First DePuy Hip Implant Trial

Few people truly understand the complexity of medical billing. For the vast majority of community members, receiving a medical bill is similar to getting a book in a different language. You understand the basic structure, but it is impossible to make heads or tails of the details. Understanding what the charges are, how they were arrived at, and how they compare to others is next to impossible. Even those intimately involved in the medical system often are not fully aware of how it all works.

One of the big challenges is the fact that the same procedure or service may have two totally different costs, depending on the patient and the manner in which they will pay.

All of it creates an immense tangle that keeps all medical billing mired in a fog. And it is one of the key reasons why we are finding it so hard to get a grip on the problem of rising medical costs.

Recently, a TIME magazine expose on the problem made national headlines. The full story can be read here (subscription required). It outlines how medical billing charges are incredibly varied and how the basis for different charges is virtually non-existent. In other words, it is next to impossible to identify why certain things are charged in certain ways except to argue that the hospitals are simply trying to get as much money as possible from whoever happens to be paying for the medical care--private insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, or private individuals without insurance.

Change on the Way
Partially in response to the expose, the U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services finally released a wealth of new information that provides a degree of public accountability to some of these procedures. As reported in a Swampland blog post, last week the department released a “massive new data file” that may be “a big step closer [for patients] to being able to compare what hospitals charge them for goods and services with what they actually cost.”

The basic data released lists a “chargemaster” price for common procedures and then the actual price that Medicare pays for the procedure--just a portion of the much larger “charmaster” price. Private insurers also make payments lower than the chargemaster rate---though that fraction may vary. In addition, private parties who get caught in a medical emergency without insurance may have to pay the whole amount.

The next step, many claim is to better understand exactly what insurance companies pay for these services. Right now, that data is not collected, making it next to impossible to truly understand the scope of the medical cost problem. That is because the payments made by private insurers are the ones that probably affect the most patients, and (should) impact insurance premiums and the like.

In any event, the publication of this Medicare data should be viewed as a positive development. The medical malpractice attorneys at our firm are used to debating the nonsensical notion that tort reform laws will impact these prices. It is encouraging for the focus to shift on actual issues with a direct bearing on medical costs so that real solutions may be developed down the road.

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Criminal Medical Malpractice Hepatitis C Trial Set to Begin

Federal Agency Removing Medical Error Data from Safety Website

We often explain how medical malpractice cases refer to civil lawsuits where an injured party (or their family) is seeking financial accountability for the consequences of medical errors. Because they are civil lawsuits, they are filed between two private parties, which can include individuals, businesses, or even public entities. Our medical malpractice lawyers in Chicago work on these cases.

In rare situations, at the same time that civil lawsuits are filed, a negligent professional may also face criminal charges. These are separate but concurrent legal matters. They do not involve one private party suing another. Instead, as in all criminal cases, it is technically the society as a whole (represented by a prosecutor) seeking accountability against someone who broke a criminal law. While the individuals directly affected by the criminal conduct may have a personal interest in ensuring criminal accountability, they technically are not a party in any criminal case.

Perhaps the most high-profile recent example of a case of malpractice against a doctor that resulted in criminal liability is that of Dr. Conrad Murray--the former personal doctor to Michael Jackson. Murray was convicted of committing crimes because his improper conduct was so obviously wrong--dispensing medication recklessly--that it rose above mere negligence.

Hepatitis C Infection At Medical Clinic
The same basic principles are also at play in a new criminal trial that is set to get underway related to the reckless infection of medical patients at an endoscopy clinic. As reported in the Las Vegas Sun, the trial is based on a hepatitis C outbreak linked to poor practices at the clinic. All told, one person died, seven were sickened, and as many as 50,000 other patients were put at risk as a result of the reckless conduct. However, another 105 patients who contracted hepatitis C may have gotten the liver disease from their interaction with the clinic.

A pair of defendants are facing a shocking 28 criminal counts, including, “criminal neglect of patients, reckless disregard of persons, theft, obtaining money under false pretenses, insurance fraud and murder.”

The outbreak occurred in 2008. According to the prosecutor representing the state in the matter, it was caused by the doctor at the clinic (along with a nurse) prioritizing profits over patients. Instead of acting carefully to ensure the safety of patients at all times, the medical team tried to rush through procedures and minimized all expenses. Most of the criminal charges are related to unsafe injection practices at one of several clinics owned by the defendant-doctor.

Unique Defense
The doctor’s criminal defense team has yet to begin arguing in the case, but even before the trial began they were making original claims about why the matter should not proceed. In particular, the doctor, they claim, is too incapacitated to be tried as a result of several strokes that he suffered. The trial was original delayed for competency hearings, but it now seems like that is no longer viable and the matter will continue.

On top of all of this, the doctor (and several others) are also facing federal criminal medical fraud charges. Federal officials are arguing that he overbilled public coffers for various medical care provided. These dual criminal charges are not uncommon, as once a medical professional is willing to sacrifice patient care for profit, they are often also willing to violate Medicare and Medicaid rules for their own gain.

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Do Negligent Hospitals Actually Profit From Malpractice?

Leading Cause of Litigated Medical Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

Patient safety advocates often explain the value of transparency when it comes to medical errors. Sloppy service, negligent treatment, and harmful conduct by medical professionals can only truly be understood and addressed when those involved have an idea of the scope and nature of the problem. What’s more, that data needs to be available to everyone--include patients--who can then make hospital choices based on these safety records. Once medical decisions are based on quality accountability tools, then the worst-performing medical facilities may eventually be spurred to change their practices to shape up. Combined with legal accountability following medical malpractice, open information is a critical tool in tackling the still too high instances of medical mistakes.

All of this makes a recent decision from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quite questionable. As iHealthBeat explained in an article this weekend, CMS have announced that they are making some changes to their popular “Hospital Compare” website. Hospital Compare is a free public site that allows patients to investigate hospitals on a large number of safety measures. It is a very helpful tool when patients and their families are making choices about what hospital to attend for a surgery or other medical procedures.

Yet, it seems that CMS officials have decided to remove certain medical errors records from the website. Specifically, data on patient development of eight different conditions, errors that fall under the rubric of “hospital acquired conditions,” are slated from removal from the website during the annual update set to take place in July. Those eight conditions include:

* Air embolism
* Blood incompatibility
* Catheter-associated infections
* Falls and trauma
* Foreign objects left in body after surgery
* Pressure ulcers
* Uncontrolled blood sugar levels
* Urinary tract infections

CMS officials tried to blunt criticism of the information removal by claiming that they hope to replace this data with a different list of hospital-acquired illnesses.

Yet, patient advocates have been quick to voice concern, noting that nothing good comes from taking away information from the public. One group that compiles its own rankings and lists of hospitals, Leapfrog, explained that “"We have a right to know if hospitals are making errors that are catastrophic to patients." The President of Leapfrog explained that it will likely take up to two years for the replacement data to be added to the site. Why the current data will be removed now, then, does not seem in the best interests of patients.

Further, there is clear speculation that the real reason for the removal of the data is lobbying for such a change by large medical interest groups. This hospital-acquired illness data was only added two year ago--and medical professionals objected to it then. Now, it seems those health care interests may have been able to exert enough influence to reverse course and remove that medical error data from public view.

This latest CMS move is a reminder of the continued need for all those who care about patient safety to stand up and make their voices heard. The desires of healthcare companies should never get in the way of medical patients right to know basic quality indicators when making choices that could literally end in life or death.

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Do Negligent Hospitals Actually Profit From Malpractice?

Leading Cause of Litigated Medical Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

The repeated attempted to limits the rights of medical malpractice victims continues in our neighboring state to the south. State lawmakers in Missouri tried last week to pass a bill that would once again place arbitrary caps on damages that a jury could award in medical malpractice cases.

The state previously had such a cap, but the state Supreme Court struck down those laws last year. The court reasoned that these rules violated the residents’ right to a jury trial. In short, per the state constitution, the legislature could not randomly replace a jury’s decision of damages with its own. Making rules that apply to all cases, no matter what the specifics--even if an impartial jury finds otherwise--is a breach of rights.

In arguing against the law, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial makes the reality strikingly clear: “The only recourse for patients is the court system. Lawmakers take away that avenue when they limit damages to a figure that insurance companies can write off as a matter of doing business. They make health care less safe. They take away personal rights that have been guaranteed since statehood. Insurance companies win. Everybody else loses.”

To highlight the point, the editorial board offered the example of a state resident who--the very day that the bill was debated--fell victim to a terrible medical error. The 53-year old woman was left with severe disability, unable to talk and requiring around-the-clock nursing care, as a result of a “never event.” The woman was scheduled to have surgery to deal with a few minor strokes she suffered. But for inexplicable reasons, the medical professionals operated on the wrong side of her brain and skull.

Yet, it is patients like the woman in that case who would be most affected by changes in the law to arbitrarily cap non-economic damages. Her family would face severe restraints on recovery because of the law, even though the error is obvious.

What’s worse, as the editorial points out, other patients may be affected. That is because the sum paid by the insurer following even the worst errors--like this one--is not so high as to incentivize the most comprehensive efforts to make sure that similar mistakes are never repeated. Medical institutions, like all businesses, are motivated by finances. If it hits their pocket book, they will adapt for safety. If the hit is minimal, there will be far less reason to act to prevent errors.

Protection Following Med Mal Injuries in Illinois
Fortunately, even though Illinois lawmakers have passed versions of these “tort reform” laws in the past, arbitrary damage award caps have been struck down in Illinois. The Illinois Supreme Court has consistently found that taking away the power of juries to decide these issues in a case by case basis from the evidence presented to them violated the explicit requirements of the Illinois Constitution.

Yet, past action does not guarantee protection from future attempts to similarly limit the rights of state residents. For that reason, our legal team encourages everyone to spread accurate information of the dangerous nature of these laws. Nothing is gained by regular community members except diminished legal protections of accountability following poor medical care.

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Do Negligent Hospitals Actually Profit From Malpractice?

Leading Cause of Litigated Medical Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

In an ideal world, medical professionals would do everything in their power to eliminate every manner of preventable error, because they would have to pay for the consequences of mistakes. Medical malpractice lawsuits are supposed to work somewhat in that manner--requiring hospitals to pay for the consequences of their inadequate care, spurring them to make changes that eliminate harmful care.

Yet, a troubling new Yahoo Health article is a reminder that in a perverse way, many hospitals actually profit from making medical mistakes. That is because the mistakes cause patients more harm, requiring even more care---and hospitals get paid for that extra care. This cycle of more and more treatment is obviously bad for the patient, bad for insurance companies, and bad for taxpayers footing the bill on much medical care. Hospitals are the only ones to benefit. All of this is one key reason why more are looking at alternative ways to make medical payments--like “managed care” systems.

Profitable Medical Errors
The Yahoo story points to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which took a look at profitability of hospitals compared with adverse surgical outcomes at those facilities which could have been prevented. What they found is frustrating, though perhaps not surprising: Hospitals with the most errors made the most money.

In particular, the average surgical error--the development of a complication which could have been prevented--provides an extra $30,500 in profits for the facility. Those profits are paid by insurers who are required to cover the medical care required to treat the complications themselves.

The co-author of the study did not hide his anger at the situation: “It’s shocking, crazy and perverse that hospitals are being financially rewarded for harming patients, while the prize for hospitals that are working hard to improve patient safety and reduce surgical errors is losing money.”

Solutions
Obviously discussions about ways to lower healthcare costs have been raging for years. But virtually nothing has been done to actually make a difference. Our med mal lawyers have frequently argued that more focus needs to be given to the connection between medical errors and high healthcare costs. As this study verifies, not only does inadequate care cause untold suffering and death--it is downright expensive. Committing much more to minimizing these preventable harms therefore has the dual benefit of increasing standards and saving money. Those steps actually don’t have to be that complicated. Studies have found repeatedly that simple actions--checklists--can go a long way to lowering the error rate.

All of this is leading many to call for a switch away from the “fee-for-service” model that creates these perverse incentives for medical professionals. Obviously most medical caregivers take their oath seriously, and would never endanger a patient intentionally for their own financial gain. But when medical errors have no cost to the facility--and actually are a financial plus--then one wonders why facilities would actually commit resources toward patient safety efforts. They are benefitting just fine from leaving the system as it is.

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Leading Cause of Litigated Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

Using “Accountable Care” To Save Medical Costs

We recently discussed the report in the international medical journal, BMJ Quality & Safety which indicated how diagnostic errors were the most common type of medical mistake which led to legal liability. Failure to make a proper diagnosis in a timely manner or missing a diagnosis completely continues to cause untold suffering and even death throughout the country, including here in Illinois.

In fact, our team of Illinois medical malpractice lawyers recently filed a suit on behalf of a man following the death of his 39-year old wife. Her passing was caused by a failure to diagnose her heart condition.

The Case
Cynthia Reuter was first admitted to the defendant in the case, Passavant Hospital in Jacksonville, in mid-November of 2011. She had chest pains and was feeling light-headed and so, being careful about her health, she went to the medical facility for help. On that visit a physician in the emergency room diagnosed her with a minor condition before sending her on her way.

The problem only worsened, and the following day she was again feeling strong heart pain. This time she went to Illini Community Hospital. Professionals there quickly knew something serious was wrong, and they immediately scheduled her to be transferred to a major medical center. Sadly, Cynthia passed away on the way to that center. She had an aortic dissection which resulted in fluid build-up that took her life.

IL Med Mal Lawsuit
Obviously the loss of a young woman so quickly was devastating on the family. Seeking answers and accountability, Cynthia’s husband, James sought out the help of our medical malpractice attorneys for legal guidance. Our team filed suit this week in the Circuit Court of Morgan County.

The lawsuit alleges that the medical staff at Passavant failed to properly analyze Cynthia’s heart condition when she first entered the emergency room. As our Attorney Steve Levin explained, “Cynthia had a heart condition which required a routinely performed heart surgery that is overwhelmingly successful in preventing death.”

Yet, because that underlying problem was not correctly diagnosed, the surgery was not performed, leading to her passing. This is a clear example of how failing to follow proper steps to reach a diagnosis can end up with a preventable death.

Eliminating Diagnosis Errors
As these examples continue to illustrate, we have a long way to go before our medical care is consistently provided free of errors or preventable mistakes. That issue is made striking clear by looking at the total number of diagnostic mistakes alone. Reasonable care demands that appropriate steps be followed to understand symptoms, order proper testing, and use reasoned judgment to make conclusions about possible ailments. Failing to follow these steps, making quick judgments, and cutting corners can prove fatal--as shown in this sad case here.

All those throughout Illinois who may have similarly suffered harm because of medical professionals incorrect or delayed diagnosis should seek out the aid of legal professionals to protect their rights. Unfortunately, some professionals and institutions will only act to make system-wide changes that improve care when they are forced to by those harmed by their negligence.

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Leading Cause of Litigated Medical Malpractice - Diagnostic Errors

Using Accountable Care to Save Medical Costs