Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

In-hospital performance of autopsies have decreased to 12-15% of patient deaths in academic medical centers and to about 2% in private hospitals. In the 1960s, over half of the patients who died in hospitals were autopsied. The decrease is largely due to hospital's attempts to save money. Additionally, fewer patients die in hospitals with an increase in deaths in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes, and under hospice care.

The benefits of performing an autopsy are numerous. Among many more, they include improved care for the living, peace of mind for family members, preventative family medical history information, and less costly litigation of medical malpractice claims. Private companies, such as San Francisco based 1-800-Autopsy, have expanded to cover the gap left by hospitals.

To read the full article.

The Pacific Research Institute recently issued a report that strongly indicated that the most recent "tort reform" has tipped the scales of justice largely in favor of large corporations, leaving children and the elderly with no remedy in the face of abuse and neglect.

Recent "tort reforms" have capped economic damages at $250,000 in medical malpractice lawsuits. This impedes potential plaintiffs, who ensure the system is working properly, by making it too expensive for many injured persons to go to trial against a large corporation who can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending lawsuits.

To read the full article.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Chicago medical malpractice. A book written by Professor Tom Baker confronts and debunks these common fallacies about medical malpractice. The book, entitled "The Medical Malpractice Myth" debunks many medical malpractice myths, including the following:

No. 1: "Lawyers, not doctors, cause malpractice"
No. 2: "Lawsuits make health care unaffordable"
No. 3: "Lawsuits deny access to care"
No. 4: "Lawsuits cause doctors to practice wasteful defensive medicine"
No. 5: "Most lawsuits are frivolous"

To purchase the book.

A recent report issed by Public Citizen profiles the top 50 lobbyist contributors to members of Congress since 1998.

To see the report:
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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:
The Legal System
Patient Safety
Health Affairs

Deceptively mislabed as the Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006, Bill S.22 was defeated in the Senate today. If passed, the so called protection act would have been detrimental to patients and their family members who are mistreated in nursing homes and hospitals across the country. The bill would have capped the total amount of non-economic damages recoverable in a medical malpractice lawsuits at $750,000, and capped the non-economic damages for individual health care providers at $250,000.

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.

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.

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In the coming weeks, Republicans in the senate plan to introduce legislation detrimental 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:
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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.