Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

The insurance industry has tried to convince the public that it is the victim of gross medical negligence that is responsible for a health care system that is spiraling out of control. However, they fail to recognize that costs are rising at a rate well beyond inflation, a lack of healthy competition and transparency regarding rates in the industry, or the growing number of uninsured and underinsured patients in America is the true reason for extremely high health care costs. It is clear that the insurance industry is trying to avoid any responsibility and instead divert attention elsewhere in the name of protecting its profits. Doctors should demand more from the industry in exchange for our business. We must hold insurance companies accountable for their reluctance to blame medical errors on the ever expanding health care cost. To read the entire letter to the editor, please click the link.

A story in the Huffington Post captured the great disparities in what advocates for tort reform say, and what they actually do. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is one of the largest donors to the biggest special-interest PAC in Texas and he currently is dedicated to “slamming courtroom doors” in the face of those hurt by companies. However, it is obvious that he does practice what he preaches considering that he ran straight to a courthouse when he believed bankrupt Lehman Brothers owed him money and filed a $60 million lawsuit. Medical societies in Texas (TMA) are another good example of hypocrites in the tort reform battle. They announce their opposition to the Senate health care bill because it doesn’t go far enough to take away the legal rights of patients injured by grossly negligent medical care. Yet, just awhile ago, the TMA joined with several other state medical societies and sued the country’s largest health insurance companies for delaying payments and keeping money from doctors. While they call attorneys for the truly injured victim “greedy” and insensitive, their own corporate and insurance lawyers sue often at the smallest provocation. In reality, companies and doctors have never lost their rights under the guise of “tort-reform” because these laws never limit the rights of corporation’s ability to recover money. However, the severely injured patients have been weakened at the hands of reckless companies. Texas made it nearly impossible for injured patients to file medical malpractice lawsuits at the same time that the Texas Medical Association was running to court to make sure managed care companies paid their doctors. In order to stop the hypocrisy, please contact your US Senator and explain your opposition to tort reform. For a closer look at the Huffington Post article, please click the link.

There is no evidence that suggests that limiting the rights of individuals to bring medical malpractice lawsuits will either lower the cost of health care or increase its quality. If this were true, Texas would have the cheapest and best health care in the nation. On the contrary, while the provisions of the tort reform legislation passed in Texas have essentially eliminated medical malpractice suits, yet their health care costs continue to rise. The reality is that doctors do not want to participate in the adversarial system of America’s courts. In every medical malpractice case, the verdict depends on another physician’s testimony that the offending doctor caused the patient’s harm by acting below the standard of a reasonable physician in similar circumstances. A great way to reduce health care costs would be to reduce the amount of hospital borne infections. In order to determine what is right for America, the government needs to listen to economists and safety experts instead of doctors or lawyers. To read more about ways to reduce health care costs, please click the link.

Kaiser Permanete, California’s largest nonprofit HMO, has been ordered to pay a former middle school administrator $5 million after its physician’s misinterpreted signs of an impeding stroke. That medical error left him partially paralyzed and disabled for life. An infection related to his later treatment led to the amputation of both his legs. A panel of three arbitrators ruled in favor of the victim, saying that the HMO’s physicians were negligent for failing to properly diagnose the cause of his episodic blindness, headaches and other complaints. The doctors had incorrectly diagnosed him with a migraine. It turned out that he was suffering from a tear in the carotid artery, which was interrupting the main source of blood to his head. Howard’s lawyer argued that if he had been promptly treated with medication than the artery would have repaired itself. However, it went untreated and led to a devastating stroke two years ago. Although no physician was disciplined over the medical malpractice, they have all studied the case to learn from it. Most of the $5 million award will be used to cover the ongoing medical care for the victim. To learn more about the arbitration award, please click the link.

A woman is suing a Hospital claiming she was the victim of medical malpractice three years ago at the hands of a nurse during child birth. The medical malpractice lawsuit alleges that the woman was given Pitocin, a drug used to induce or augment labor, without orders from a physician. The drug allegedly caused the victim to have rapid contractions that slowed the baby’s heart rate, prompting an emergency C-section. The medical malpractice claim states that the hospital is responsible for the woman’s permanent injuries and damages, pain and suffering, disability, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life. She looks for damages as well as compensation for past and future medical expenses related to the medical error. To learn more about the birthing error, please click the link.

A Cook County jury awarded the parents of a ten-year-old boy with a $22.3 million verdict in a medical negligence case. The medical law case arose out of the care and treatment ten years ago which resulted in the loss of the boy’s left leg. The boy had been born with a congenital heart defect which required a shunt procedure. He was then sent home with his parents. Two weeks after his hospital dismissal his parents took him to the emergency room at the hospital where a series of delays and overall negligent care led to his injuries. His left leg, which was improperly dressed in the operating room, ultimately had to be amputated. Additionally, treatment and cardiac catheterization led to his cognitive deficiencies and developmental delays. The jury agreed that the hospital and staff were medically negligent in that they failed to make a timely diagnosis of the shunt problem; improperly subjected him to an unnecessary cardiac catheterization; improperly applied a pressure dressing to Jake’s left leg and also failed to remove in a timely fashion; failed to monitor his pulse and improperly destroyed an echocardiogram. To read more about the medical malpractice trial, please click the link.

Representative Bruce Braley gave a last-minute speech about medical errors moments before the House voted on the health reform bill earlier this month. He asked who was supposed to speak for the patients. He quoted an Institute of Medicine report stating that, “[t]he most significant way to reduce the cost of medical malpractice is to emphasize patient safety by reducing the number of preventable medical errors.” Nearly 200,000 Americans die each year from errors made during their medical care and from infections they picked up in the hospital. Many were pleased that someone in Congress finally stood up for patient safety. Currently the health care bill is in front of the Senate. To read more about the Senator and his medical error speech, please click the link.

Healthcare-associated infections are a global crisis affecting both patients and healthcare workers. According to the World Health Organization, at any point in time, 1.4 million people worldwide suffer from hospital-borne infections. This is why Kimberly Clarke has started a website designed to prevent hospital infection. It releases news stories regarding the infections and discusses prevention measures. This website will be critical to the fight of ending medical error. To check out the infection website, please click the link.

The sister of a deceased woman is suing Northwestern Memorial Hospital on behalf of the victim after the woman committed suicide while in the hospital’s care. According to the medical malpractice suit filed in Cook County, Northwestern should have recognized the late patient’s risk for self-injury and suicide since she was admitted into the hospital’s care after a suicide attempt. The lawsuit states that the hospital was negligent in leaving the victim, who expressed regret that her attempt at suicide has been unsuccessful, unsupervised and alone in a room with the means and opportunity to commit suicide. The family is asking for pecuniary damages exceeding $50,000. The medical malpractice lawsuit claims two counts of wrongful death and survival. Visit WBBM to learn more about the medical malpractice suit.

A seventh circuit federal judge in Illinois upheld an $8.2 million wrongful death award against the United States and St. Louis University. The victim died from complications of an abscess behind his abdomen while under the care of St. Louis University doctors who operated a joint program with the United States at Scott Air Force Base. The family had claimed that doctors failed to diagnose and treat the abscess. The wrongful death has devastated the family leaving some depressed. The federal court awarded to the $8.2 million verdict after finding hospital negligence. The defendants appealed the liability judgment and the loss of consortium award, which was $7 million. The defendants claimed that there needed to be a ratio approach to the loss of consortium damages. The court found that give the unique nature of the case that there was no ratio that would adequately work. Please click the link to read more about the hospital negligence.

Illinois consumers can now pore over an abundant amount of data, mostly much of it unpublished, about Illinois hospitals and surgery centers on a state-sponsored Web site. The website will include information on what these medical providers charge, how many procedures they perform, how often they deliver recommended care, and how consumers rate their care. They can also find which hospitals use registered nurses most often or which Illinois hospitals perform the most cesarean sections. This will help people become better consumers of medical services and hold medical providers accountable for their performance. The state will also add a great deal of additional information to the Web site over the next year. For example, the website will soon include information about the number of hospital-acquired infections each institution has. The current data includes information on which hospitals adhere most often to the recommended standards of care for patients with heart attacks. This website will help Illinois consumers track medical mistakes.

To visit the website, please click the link.

To read more about the website’s launch, please click the link.

Tort reform proponents assert that medical malpractice costs are a significant factor in rising health care costs, yet they are clearly wrong. Medical malpractice premiums account for only a tiny fraction of our medical bills and have not risen the way that health care costs have. Also, tort reform advocates tend to disparage the performance of the jury system. Usually juries only compensate patients who are true victims of medical malpractice. Advocates also forget that the right to a jury is a constitutionally protected right. Problems can be addressed with modest changes in the current system. Many victims of medical error feel better with an apology. Also, we need to compensate more victims with less-severe injuries in order to simplify the small claims process. Caps on recoverable damages only punish those who are victims of grave medical errors. To read more about tort reform, please click the link.

A victim is suing a surgeon for negligence and medical malpractice. The victim was a patient of the general surgeon and was being treated for a gall bladder problem. The medical malpractice lawsuit complains that the surgeon performed a laparoscopic clolecystectomy on the patient that did not go as planned. The doctor clipped and divided what he thought would be a cystic duct, however it was not. The victim claims she has undergone numerous surgical procedures to correct the doctor’s error. She has incurred damages, including past and future medical expenses; past and future lost homemaker services; past and future mental and physical pain and suffering; and loss of her capacity to enjoy life. To read more about the medical malpractice, please click the link.

Every year 98,000 people die from preventable medical error. The families of the victims are now faced with more pain as Republicans seek to tighten tort law. These would hinder the victims of medical error from receiving appropriate settlements. To view the video, please click below.

98000reasons.org: Blake Fought from American Association for Justice on Vimeo.

The daughter of a recently deceased woman has filed a lawsuit against St. Joseph’s Hospital of Highland, Illinois. The medical malpractice lawsuit alleges her mother died from injuries she sustained after she fell while attempting to climb out of her hospital bed. At the time of the victim’s admittance to the hospital, employees knew she was a fall risk. They attached a close call device to her gown, which was supposed to alert them any time the woman attempted to leaver her bed. She then attempted to get out of the hospital bed, but instead fell to the floor. As a result, the victim suffered severe and permanent injuries that led to her death. She also endured great pain from the fall before her wrongful death. The hospital negligence lawsuit is blaming the nursing staff for failing to properly inspect the close call alarm, for using a close call clip that they knew was not properly working and for failing to properly monitor the victim when they knew she was a fall risk. To read more about the hospital negligence, please click the link.

The husband and estate of a woman who developed blood clots and died shortly after undergoing outpatient knee surgery have been awarded more than $6 million in a medical malpractice trial. The 42-year-old victim was referred by her primary care physician at an Army hospital to an orthopedic surgeon to investigate complaints of worsening pain in her left knee. The surgeon gave the victim an injection for the pain and ordered physical therapy. During a follow-up visit the doctor ordered an MRI to determine whether the victim might have a tear in the cartilage of her knee. The MRI indicated a “cartilaginous loose body” behind the victim’s knee and she underwent less than an hour of arthroscopic surgery at the hospital. She went home that day. The next day the victim’s daughter came into check on her and found her dead on the bathroom floor. An autopsy revealed that deep venous thromboids had formed at site of the surgery and had traveled to the lung causing a pulmonary embolism. The couple had just retired from the Army and was excited to start traveling. The trial documents stated that the doctor ignored several risk factors that should have indicated blood clotting could be a problem. The doctor did not appreciate risk factors such as obesity, birth control pills and hypertension. By not appreciating these risk factors, the doctor committed medical malpractice. During the one-week trial it became evident that the doctor did not observe post-surgery precautions. This could have prevented the wrongful death. To read more about the medical malpractice trial, please click the link.

Eleven national consumer and public interest groups whose memberships represent many millions of Americans sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging rejection of any amendments or substitutes to the health care bill that would limit the legal rights of patients injured by medical malpractice. These groups include the NCCNHR, Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America and the Alliance for Justice. The letter points out that medical malpractice is currently at epidemic levels in America. Right now, up to 98,000 die each year from medical error throughout America’s hospital. They asked that Congress focus on improving patient safety and reducing deaths and injuries instead of insulating negligent providers from accountability. The groups also support the repeal of the insurance industry’s anti-tax exemption under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. They concluded the letter by urging Congress to reject any amendments or substitutions that limit patients’ legal rights. Please contact your local Senator to express these same sentiments. To read the health care letter in its entirety, please click the link.

The website 98,000reasons.org highlights the many stories of people who have fallen victim to medical error. These stories involve surgical error, inattentiveness and hospital infections. One story involves a 29-year-old woman who underwent a partial thyroidectomy to remove a goiter at a hospital. Twelve hours later, she began to develop shortness of breath and felt her neck tighten. Despite complaints to the nurses, her condition was not appropriately monitored. She then went into respiratory arrest and suffered severe brain damage. It was later discovered that she had a hemotoma at the site of the surgery.

Another woman went in for kidney stone surgery in February of this year. Six weeks later her health was deteriorating. Doctors diagnosed her with hepatits C, a condition that also infected 35 other patients at the hospital. A state investigation revealed that the outbreak began with a hospital staff person who had used hospital syringes and painkillers for drug users.

The final story involves a woman with a kidney stone who was transferred to four different hospitals. Her body developed sepsis, a complication caused by infection. She then suffered congestive heart failure and had to have both legs amputated below her knees. These stories show that medical error is not something to be ignored. By enacting tort reform, Congress is simply ignoring these stories, and the stories of 98,000 more. To read more about medical error, please visit the American Association for Justice.

While the House passed a sweeping health care overhaul this weekend, opponents of true reform attacked injured patients. They did so despite countless studies that show that tort reform will do little to diminish health care costs in this country. Tort law changes will do practically nothing to lower the costs or cover the uninsured. One patient’s story shows that legislators must consider the injured patients in their discussions. Blake Fought was 19 years old and about to be released from the hospital. Before he left however, the untrained nurse tried to remove his central line IV and did not follow the proper procedures. This caused bubbles to enter Blake’s brain, heart and blood vessels. He became one of the estimated 98,000 patients who die each year from preventable medical errors. Countless more are seriously injured. This is a number far too large for lawmakers to ignore. Tort law changes will not fix America’s broken health care system, but only hurt families fighting to find justice. To read more about tort reform, please click the link.

Lawyers told jurors that a hospital did not do enough to care for the brother of James Woods when he went to the emergency room complaining of a sore throat and vomiting in 2006. The trial comes after the filed wrongful death lawsuit. The victim died from heart disease at the hospital after going into cardiac arrest on a gurney at the age of 49. The medical malpractice attorney representing the family stated that the actor’s brother wasn’t seen by a doctor until an hour after he arrived and was initially treated in a section of the emergency room reserved for less-urgent cases. Still, when his EKG came back abnormal, he was not given oxygen, aspirin or hooked to heart monitoring to track further deterioration. These are all part of the standard care that is usually given in this situation. Instead, he was taken for additional X-rays and left in the nurse’s station because no room was available. He went into cardiac arrest after the medical negligence and died nearly three hours after his arrival at the hospital. To read more about the medical malpractice trial, please click the link.

Currently tort reform laws exist in nearly every state. These laws make it more different for average people who have endured medical error to sue those responsible. It is evident that the tort reform movement was created and funded by insurance companies and the medical profession and backed by conservative “think-tanks.” However, what they fail to remember is that tort reforms always hurt patients, consumers and average people. Recently two families with severely disabled teenaged boys traveled to the nation’s capital to plead that Congress does not enact tort reform. One teenage is blind and brain damaged after he was a victim of medical negligence at the age of two. A jury awarded his family $7.1 million in non-economic damages for his life of suffering. However, the judge was forced to reduce the amount to $250,000 because of medical malpractice caps. The jury foreman was so outraged that he wrote a scathing letter to the newspaper. Currently, the medical profession has more liability protection than any profession in the nation. They do not need any more. To read more about the tort reform, please click the link.

Medical malpractice attorneys for the family of the nurse who died after liposuction treatment at a tanning salon said her medical records show that she could have been given too high a dosage of drugs. The 37-year-old slipped into a coma and was declared brain-dead after a doctor performed the procedure at a Medspa. She was removed from life support and died. The lawyers have said that they will file a medical malpractice lawsuit against both the doctor and the Medspa. The medical experts reviewed the records and determined that the victim had been given too high a dose of the local anesthetic lidocaine. The victims also criticized the doctor for using Propofol which is the same anesthetic thought to have contributed to the death of Michael Jackson. They argue that this type of drug should not be administered in a tanning salon. To read more about the tanning salon death, please click the link.

In the ongoing debate over health care reform, critics are increasingly citing the lack of tort reform as a major deficiency of the current proposals floating around Congress. Republicans are using conservatives to seek tort reform to shield corporate malefactors from full accountability for their wrongdoing. Corporate interests have a vested interest in keeping the tide of public opinion running against trial lawyers because it deflects the widespread problem of negligent and reckless conduct that injures consumers. Currently 98,000 people die annually from preventable medical errors which places medical malpractice as the sixth leading cause of death in America. This immediately places victims and their families at the hands of the court system in order to achieve justice. Under the 7th amendment, victims should be guaranteed a fair trial before a jury. However Republicans are looking to infringe upon this right by enacting tort reform. Contact your local representative and inform them that trial rights should not be diminished and fight for the victims of medical malpractice. To read more about tort reform, please click the link.

One doctor appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to discuss his article on medical malpractice reform. He pointed out that medical malpractice is a patients’ rights issue as well as a doctor’s issue. He believes that medical malpractice caps leave an injured victim with very little recourse because the cost of fighting for compensation exceeds the payout. While the caps may prevent frivolous lawsuits, they also make it harder for a patient to hold a doctor accountable for medical malpractice. He also tried to debunk the issue of defensive medicine and whether tort reform is the cure. He does not believe defensive medicine is the key to lowering health care costs. He, as a doctor, does not believe that doctors do not practice defensive medicine to protect themselves from medical malpractice lawsuits. He believes that many doctors are pressured for time and do not have time to take a proper history. Tort reform will not aide in any of the problems that health care reform pose. To read more about the doctor’s ideas on tort reform, please click the link.

New problems have emerged at the troubled VA Medical Center in Marion, Illinois. This has prompted Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to order a “top-to-bottom” review of the facility. Senator Durbin and other Illinois lawmakers met with the VA secretary after a report this week found ongoing problems at the facility, where nine patients died in surgery in six months ending in March 2007. This is a mortality level more than four times the expected rate. Durbin blamed the nine deaths on “medical malpractice” and called the newly disclosed problems “appalling” and “inexcusable.” The Marion VA’s interim director has been replaced and more personnel changes are scheduled. The new report identified problems in four areas: quality management; physician credentialing and privileging; medication management and environment of care. The final problem area relates to infection control standards and cleanliness of the hospital. The 30-page report identified that two physicians performed procedures for which they lacked privileges. Additionally there was a failure to screen deaths within 30 days of surgical procedure. To read more about the failing hospital, please click the link.

Five Myths About Medical Negligence, is one in a series of reports from the American Association for Justice on the errors and faults behind the most commonly used talking points of health care reform opponents.

The first myth is that there are too many “frivolous” malpractice lawsuits. The fact is that there is an epidemic of medical negligence, not lawsuits. Only one in eight people injured by medical negligence ever file a lawsuit. Also civil findings have declined eight percent over the past decade. A 2006 Harvard study found that 97 percent of claims were meritorious stating that “portraits of a malpractice system that is stricken with frivolous litigation are overblown.”

The second myth is that malpractice claims drive up health care costs. However reports show that compensating victims of medical negligence was just 0.3% of health care costs.

Supposedly doctors are fleeing due to medical negligence, yet the number of physicians is growing faster than the population. Additionally, research has found that there is little correlation between medical malpractice claims and doctors’ premiums. An AAJ report has found that malpractice insures have earnings higher than 99% of Fortune 500 companies.

Finally, tort reform will not lower insurance rates. Even the most ardent tort reformers know this. To read more about the myths, please visit the AAJ’s website.

Patient Safety experts at Johns Hopkins are taking their prescription for avoiding medical errors at hospitals beyond the “no fault, no blame” approaches. They are now calling for penalties for doctors and nurses who fail to comply with proven safety measures. The experts believe that penalties should apply when current “no blame” practices designed to prevent recurrences stall, and after warnings and counseling have failed to change health care workers’ behavior. The experts state that since medical mistakes continue to occur, its time to add some accountability and enforcement policies to address and stop unsafe practices. They are beginning a study hoping to decrease the 100,000 yearly deaths in the United States from infections picked up by people while undergoing treatment. Under their new system, health care workers who persistently fail to wash their hands before entering a patient’s room would be required to undergo mandatory training and re-education classes. Repeated failure to use and sign surgical checklists when inserting catheters would be punished as well. The medical world needs to understand that the right balance between no blame and individual accountability is that doing so will save lives. To read more about individual accountability, please click the link.

Lately, there has been a great deal of press given to medical malpractice damage caps and the part they play in reducing health care costs. However, people forget that damage caps would result in patients losing the benefit of the market oversight and penalties associated with malpractice underwriting. Capping liability could reduce the private market efforts to investigate the risk characteristics of the individuals they insure. Also, medical malpractice caps would harm injured patients. Instead, experts state that managed-care arrangements would be more useful in achieving the goals of lowering health care. They would allow medical professional liability insurance underwriters to continue to provide both oversight and penalties for medical negligence and substandard care. By setting up appropriate incentives, medical professional liability insurance can contribute to consumer protection in the market of physician services without taking away a patient’s rights. Putting caps on damages will only inhibit these efforts and hurt victims of medical negligence. To read more about the medical negligence, please click the link.

Serious safety issues continue to plague an Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital. This comes even after major surgeries were suspended two years ago because of a spike in patient deaths. Surgeons at the medical center in Marion, Illinois performed procedures without proper authorization. Also, patient deaths were not assessed adequately and miscommunication between staff members persist. The medical center’s is not taking the corrective actions to improve patient care. The hospital has been under intense scrutiny since 2007 when a former surgeon resigned after a patient bled to death following gall bladder surgery. The VA found at least nine deaths between October 2006 and March 2007 which were the result of substandard care at the hospital. Additionally, a report found that the hospital did not sufficiently monitor 87 percent of the physician’s employed. There were strong problems with infection control, including MRSA. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is outraged by the substandard care that is occurring at the Veteran’s Hospital. To read more about the medical malpractice, please click the link.

A new documentary film, “Money-Driven Medicine” tackles the economic underpinnings of an American healthcare system that kills four times as many people though medical error and preventable infections as those who die in a highway accident. The film explores the question of how a country that spends more money per capita than anywhere winds up with higher infant mortality rates and poorer hospital-care outcomes than other wealthy countries. The film proposes that the health care system isn’t patient driven but instead stockholder driven and technology crazed. The film discusses how the current health care system fails to offer optimum everyday community-based care for the average patient’s chronic conditions. One doctor describes the current health care system “a national tragedy.” It shows one man who was in the hospital with severe burns. While he was in the hospital, medical neglect and tardy responses to his complications caused an infected gall bladder, a coma, damage to his pancreas and scarring on the surface of his eyes. His wife has become an advocate for patient safety and has expressed anger over the lack of action by lawmakers to address the problem of medical errors. Free online of the film viewing can be seen on this website. To read more about medical errors, please click the link.

Patrick Malone wrote an article for the Huffington Post discussing the lack of accountability of doctors in medical malpractice. In the medical industry, a doctor will lose his or her license for only flagrant patterns of drug or alcohol abuse or other criminal behavior. The health care’s big safety emphasis in recent years has been to create a “no blame” culture that encourages reporting of medical errors and injuries by promises of confidentiality and non-punitive action. This idea was implemented so that medical errors can be corrected by implementing “systems” changes, such as checklists to make sure all appropriate steps are taken to prevent infections. Yet this system also allows physicians who repeatedly put their patients in jeopardy to ignore the rules. This occurs often when surgeons don’t follow the now routine practice of “signing the site” to prevent wrong-site surgery. This explains why an estimated 4,000 wrong-site surgeries are still performed every year in the United States. Some medical safety leaders are starting to call for accountability for rules violations. They stated that “every safe industry has transgressions that are firing offenses.” They proposed a short list of offenses in the hospital that call for suspension of a doctor’s practice for a limited time such as: failing to perform hand hygiene, skipping the sign-over to a new provider at the end of a shift, not marking the surgical site, and failing to use a checklist at the start of surgery to make sure everyone in the operating room knows the special needs of the patient. To read more about doctor accountability, please click the link.

There is a low-tech way to cut down on a deadly infection that strikes roughly 80,000 intensive-care patients in the U.S. every year. Michigan hospitals dramatically lowered rates of bloodstream infections in their patients by following a five-step checklist. However, nearly three years after the study appeared meaningful use of the checklist remains limited. The list prescribed steps that doctors and nurses in the intensive-care unit should take when performing a common procedure. The procedure is inserting a catheter into a vein just outside the patient’s heart, to allow easy delivery of intravenous drugs and fluids. The steps are quite simple and the Michigan study found that putting the checklist in place lowered the rate of bloodstream infections related to catheter use by 66%. Experts believe that despite the checklists low cost and practical steps, hospitals are slow to implement them simply because it’s a culture piece. Nurses are afraid of backlashes from their physicians. This culture clash is allowing between 30,000 and 60,000 people per year to die, and hospitals are ignoring the need for such checklists. It is time for hospitals to require the checklists to ensure that people do not die from preventable hospital-borne infections. To read more about the checklists, please click the link.

On November 17, 2010 the Consumes Union’s Safe Patient Project (formerly Stop Hospital Infections) is holding a forum, “To Err is Human, To Delay Is Deadly,” in Washington DC. You may watch a free live webcast on the day of the event. The forum will mark the 10th Anniversary of the IOM study on medical errors. It will raise concerns about the lack of progress over the past decade in preventing medical harm. The Safe Patient Project campaign released a report about the medical errors earlier this year. The campaign will cover: hospital-acquired infections, medical errors and other medical harm including physician accountability and drug safety. To find out more information about the webcast, please click the link.

The Huffington Post discussed the powerful insurance industry and their influence on health care reform. Doctors have long been complaining about their medical malpractice insurance rates. They blame them on judges, juries and injured patients, blaming them for insurers’ decisions to raise rates even though claims and payouts have dropped over the last several years. They tell lawmakers that the only way to bring rates under control is to strip away patients’ rights to go to court. Sick and injured patients have now become the insurance industry’s scapegoats. However, limiting the legal rights of patients is no answer. Instead the insurance industry needs to be held responsible for their price-gouging of doctors. The anti-competitive behavior of the insurance industry is the cause for the high medical malpractice insurance and they should be held responsible. Maybe then Congress will understand that is both unfair and ineffective to punish medical malpractice victims. To read more about the medical insurance industry, please click the link.

Health care legislation that currently sits before Congress takes only modest steps to address a problem that is far more important than inadequate medical insurance, medical error. Recent studies show that preventable medical errors kill four times as many people than lack of medical insurance. A national Hearst investigation found that up to 200,000 people per year die from medical errors and infections in the United States. A Hearst analysis shows that the three health care reform bills currently before Congress do not include key solutions that are to address medical error. The legislation does not include safety measures, despite the recommendations from the federal study “To Err Is Human.” It appears that Congress does not have a sense of urgency about medical error. “To Err is Human” recommends mandatory reporting of medical errors and systemic changes to prevent future mistake. One provision does require national reporting of hospital-acquired infections, but not medical errors. Patient safety experts say that mandatory reporting is too important to be left out of the current healthcare reform legislation. To read more about the medical malpractice legislation, please click the link.