Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

In 1999 a survey was conducted by the Institute of Medicine that reported between 48,000 and 98,000 Americans dying yearly as a result of preventable medical errors. Specifically, medication errors and neglect were to blame for the deaths. Shockingly, this makes hospital errors the eighth highest cause of death in the United States, above car crashes. The most mistakes occurred in hospitals run by the Veterans Health Administration. Apparently almost ten years has made little difference in VA hospitals, as lawsuits and complaints against them are numerous. A possible explanation for the high rate of errors is that VA doctors do not have to pay their own malpractice insurance since the government pays out for any harm caused by a doctor’s negligence. Further, the caliber of VA doctors may be lower than the general population; take, for example; Dr. Veizaga-Mendez, who was hired by the VA even though he had a history of medical malpractice lawsuits and claims against him. Hopefully the onslaught of medical malpractice lawsuits and allegations will instigate a change in VA hospitals.

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Recently, a 13-year-old Illinois boy died at a Chicago hospital after being brought there with very severe signs of neglect including ulcers, one of which was seeping pus. The boy was being taken care of by his mother and three nurses for various conditions including cerebral palsy. One of the nurses, Morris Lee Brinkley, found him when she started her shift lying in his own feces and urine in the mornings, yet still failed to make a call to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services ("DCFS"), which might have saved his life. The other nurse, Loren Brown, did not call DCFS either, though she knew the boy's mother had failed to take him to his doctor's appointments. Both nurses claim that they informed their supervisor of the child's condition, but she denies any such knowledge, further, when the nurses did not see any reaction, they should have made the call to DCFS themselves. The boy’s mother, although not a medical professional, is far from without fault however, as she had a heavy hand in his neglect. The boy’s death has been ruled a homicide, and his mother and the two nurses have been charged with felony neglect and failure to report a neglected child. The extreme level of neglect that was reached could have been prevented had there not been a nursing error: by failing to report the abuse, Brinkley and Brown, regardless of their hand in the actual neglect, made a deadly error in judgment, and their prosecution may show that medical malpractice was involved.

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Condell, Lake County’s largest hospital, may soon be for sale to the highest bidder. Condell and Chicago-based Advocate Health have been in talks about Advocate buying Condell to expand Advocate’s presence in Lake County. Advocate has signed an agreement to buy Condell for $180 Million. Condell has faced financial trouble in recent years, losing upwards of $20 Million in patient revenue. Often, when hospitals lose money they may cut costs in patient care which can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits. State and Federal regulators still need to approve the deal.

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A US Navy veteran has won his medical malpractice lawsuit against a Veterans’ Affairs hospital doctor after a series of failed operations left him permanently disabled, receiving a verdict of $622,739. The man, who retired from Chicago-based Smurfit-Stone Container Corp in 2001, brought his medical malpractice lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The man originally entered the VA hospital for a hernia operation during which the doctors mistakenly severed an artery in his stomach, leading to 6 additional surgeries, a staph infection, and pneumonia.

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Around 47 million Americans don't have health care, but even those that do agree that problems in the United States healthcare system need reform. In a recent article, 10 health care experts offered their personal suggestions on how to improve the country's situation.

1. Mend the medical schools
2. Single-payer insurance (creating a national system)
3. Individual, not company, plans
4. Divert the dollar to the doc
5. Pay for the care of populations, not events (high quality preventive care)
6. Cut costs for med students
7. Eliminate insurance all together
8. More health centers (affordable, community health centers)
9. Stimulating positive-sum competition (giving more info to providers and consumers)
10. Keep it low-tech (low-tech approaches to preventive healthcare)

Click here to read the descriptions of the experts who offered these ideas, in addition to more information about each view.

A Cook County, Illinois jury recently awarded the family of a victim of medical malpractice $7,000,000. The victim died of a pulmonary embolism after knee surgery at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. The man's wife alleged that the negligence of a doctor and a physician's assistant caused the untimely death of her husband. The health care providers failed to review the patient's records, overlooking a medical history of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. As a result, the Illinois man was not administered the proper medication in a timely manner, allowing the formation of blood clots and allowing other blood clots to continue growing. This medical mistake ultimately led to the patient's wrongful death.

The Paris Regional Medical Center, a Paris, Texas hospital owned by Essent Healthcare, Inc., has filed a defamation lawsuit against a blogger who has been critical of the medical care that the Paris Regional Medical Center has provided. At this stage in the litigation, the Paris Regional Medical Center’s main goal has been to unmask the identity of the anonymous blogger. After that, the Paris Regional Medical Center hopes to shut down the web site and curb the criticism that the blog, the-paris-site, has generated against the Paris Regional Medical Center.

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The American Cancer Society has recently produced an ad campaign stressing the need of adequate quality health care for Americans in order to lower cancer death rates. Among the poorly insured and uninsured, cancer is most often detected at an advanced stage, too frequently proving fatal. The American Cancer Society's goals of reducing cancer death and incidence rates by 2015, beginning in 1990, will not be met unless access to screening and treatment becomes available to all patients. The society's chief executive stated that, "lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco," unless the health care system is amended. The delay in diagnosing poorly or uninsured patients causes them to bear the costs of more expensive and difficult treatments. Within families afflicted with cancer, one in four will use most or all of their savings, including one in five insured families, to fight the disease. 47 million Americans do not have health insurance, and millions more only have limited coverage. Access to health care for all Americans will lower cancer death rates, among innumerable other health ailments.

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The search for the solution to reaching a better balance between cost and quality of doctors and hospitals has reached an important turning point. A recent court ruling opens consumer access to specific data from the Medicare claims database of doctors. A consumer group sued the Health and Human Services Department asking for the disclosure of this information involving about 40 million patients (who will not be disclosed) and over 700,000 doctors. An appeal of this ruling seems unlikely as one of the Bush administration's initiatives is to improve price and quality transparency of medical providers. Furthermore, support to open the Medicare database for public access is rising in the Senate. This ruling will allow patients to see how many of a certain type of procedure a doctor has performed successfully and if the tests ordered by doctors are necessary, which will help to reduce the cost of treatment.

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"Sicko - Musings on Healthcare From an Insider" is a new blog that has proven to be informative, relevant and straightforward. Author and speaker Anthony Cirillo, a healthcare expert, advocates for elder adults, working to assure their dignity and respect. Recent postings have included information about healthcare reform and doctor fees.

Click here to read the blog

Two days after winning a personal injury lawsuit against the Illinois hospital whose medical malpractice caused her son brain damage, a registered nurse who worked in a facility owned by that hospital was suspended. Less than a year later, the nurse was terminated under conditions which would make it nearly impossible for her to find other work as a nurse. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital terminated the nurse in retaliation so that other nurses and employees would be deterred from trying to sue the hospital in the future.

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Pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers have access to information regarding which medications doctors prescribe for the reason that they are able to buy the information from the American Medical Association (AMA), and from companies that match the AMA’s data with pharmacy records. The AMA is holding its annual meeting in Chicago, where this topic is sure to be raised as an important issue. Some groups are planning to protest during the meeting in front of the Hilton Chicago. The information is being used to increase the sales of newer, more expensive drugs whereas it could be used to improve quality, safety of care, and lower drug prices. Many states, including Illinois, are proposing bills after noticing the correlation between the release of such information and the rising health care costs consumers face. Doctors that are not members of the AMA, about two thirds, are unaware that this information is being released. The AMA is planning to publish ads in medical journals to spread the information to doctors unaware of the fact that they can opt out of this practice.

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Recently, judges in Madison County met with the Illinois State Medical Society and its insurance company (the largest medical malpractice insurer in the state), and included numerous lawyers. There were concerns, however, that judges may have been succumbing to political forces influenced by the insurance companies. The meeting ultimately resulted in the implementation of new tort rules, which were announced Monday, June 18, 2007. The rules include mandatory mediation for all malpractice lawsuits in an effort to encourage settlements out of court and required monthly meetings of a panel of judges to discuss pending medical malpractice lawsuits.

Plaintiffs will have the opportunity to amend complaints in order to comply with the Illinois state law requiring all cases to be reviewed by physicians prior to filing. Additionally, plaintiffs are not going to be forced into settlement agreements, and participating in the mediation will not imply guilt for defendants who deny liability. There is no harm for either side in promoting controlled mediation to encourage settlements over expensive and drawn-out trials if they are unnecessary. However, the impact of these new regulations could prove to be marginal at best.

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President Bush has vetoed a measure promoting embryonic stem cell research for the second time. This time, however, he simultaneously announced a related and symbolic executive order. The order, a new scientific initiative, will have three parts: allowing research involving other stem cells to be eligible for federal financing if they have the same properties as embryonic stem cells, ordering the Secretary of Health and Human Services to support alternate techniques and the exploration of new scientific theories involving stem cells obtained from amniotic fluid or cells that have been deemed “clinically dead”. The initiative appears to be symbolic because there is no money attached. Also, Bush’s initiative pushes for the National Institute of Health to focus on a recent study involving possible reassignment of the skin cells of mice. Leading scientific researchers contend that this alternative has not been replicated in humans and is not a sufficient substitute to research and progress made with embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells can develop into any type of tissue in the body, possibly resulting in the discovery of new treatments and cures for the sick and injured. Researchers, advocates and politicians, including many from the President’s own party, will inevitably be questioning and criticizing Bush’s veto and virtually symbolic initiative.

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A study conducted shows that there is no connection between the quality of health care provided and the cost of that health care. The study compared the costs of a given medical procedure against the length of hospital stay required or against the death rates associated with that procedure. Suprisingly, there not only seemed to be no correlation between an increase cost of health care and an increase in the quality of that care, but the most expensive health care providers actually provided lower quality care in some instances.

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Despite efforts by the federal government to reduce the costs of health care, insurance premiums have continued to rise. A recent article blames the incentive structure for doctors. When the government limited the amount of profit that doctors could make on drugs that they administered in their offices, doctors responded by simply administering more drugs to more patients for whom the medicines would not help.

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A doctor who failed to diagnose diabetes, which led to a patient's death, settled the medical malpractice lawsuit after admitting in court that he was the author of a blog against medical malpractice litigation. The defendant admitted in court that he was the author of the blog, which contained information regarding his attorney's trial strategy. The defendant then settled the lawsuit the next day. Posts from "drfleablog" have since been deleted.

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Next year, a “special master” in an obscure secret Federal court will preside over a highly urgent matter of national importance. The Bush Administration has stated its intention to hold the hearings in a sealed courtroom, off limits to any outsider. In fact, outsiders attempting to gain unauthorized access to the secretive proceedings will be sanctioned.

The trials revolve around vaccines. Roughly 4,750 autism-related cases have been pending for years. Claimants are charging that the mercury-based vaccine preservative contributed to their children’s autism and are seeking compensation from a special vaccine injury fund administered by the federal government.

The Claimants do not want privacy. The only parties wishing for privacy are the Department of Justice and probably the vaccine makers. The entire creation of this upcoming secret court shows that the DOJ and vaccine makers have something to hide.

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