Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

One state and the biggest insurer therein announced a list of 28 medical errors for which doctors and hospitals will no longer be reimbursed. The 28 errors entail mistakes such as performing surgery on the wrong body part, or the wrong patient, performing the wrong surgical procedure on a patient, unintentionally leaving a foreign body in a patient, and death or serious disability resulting from a medication error such as the wrong drug or dose. The list will be used by Blue Cross Blue Shield in the particular state and by several state agencies that provide or subsidize insurance for various groups including needy people. This comes after Medicare announced last year that it would stop paying for what are called “never events,” such as leaving a foreign object inside a surgical patient. This initiative may spread to other states, including Illinois.

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Following the lead of a Midwestern hospital, facilities throughout the country are taking a novel approach to medical malpractice – honesty. In an effort to limit liability, hospitals are calling patients’ families for meetings where they inform the family members that their loved one died, not because of natural causes, but physician malpractice or negligence. Surprisingly, the approach has worked to the extent that most family members appreciate an honest account of the cause of death.

However, there is an invidious motive behind this new policy. Hospitals are finding that by calling family members into their facility and telling them what happened, they are able to force ignorant or misinformed grieving family members into an emotional decision to settle before even consulting an attorney. This has the potential to create problems where settlements are far below fair compensation for the pain and suffering experienced by the family or even insufficient to cover basic medical expenses. Many of these cases involve gross negligence on the part of physicians where a patient is administered the wrong medication or a fundamental test is not performed that could have prevented death.

Ultimately, the policy of honesty has potential in wrongful death situations. However, patients and family members should be cautious when faced with a sudden decision to settle. At the very least, these individuals should avoid making an emotional decision on-the-spot. To this extent, consulting an attorney would help improve and refine this new approach to medical malpractice.

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Dennis Quaid’s newborn infants almost died earlier this year after a medication dosing error where they were given an adult dose of a blood thinner. The babies were hospitalized at the time for an infection, however they were doing well when a nurse misread a drug label and inadvertently gave the infants the adult dose, an overdose of the drug for the babies. This caused the infants’ blood to turn essentially into the consistency of water, and they were bruised and bleeding profusely, one of the infants was even bleeding through its belly button. What disturbed Quaid and his wife the most was the hospital’s reaction to the mistake, no one called to notify them, and when they came to visit the next morning, they were confronted by risk management officials from the hospital. While Quaid’s children recovered, other infants have died from similar medication errors regarding pediatric versus adult dosing and labeling. Quaid is now trying to bring attention to medical mistakes in general, which are a leading cause of death in America.

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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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Army Hospitals have a growing problem with drug overdoses and patient deaths due to drug overdoses and interactions. Since June of last year, there has been an increase in the number of incidents of accidental drug overdoses to patients in Army hospitals. Additionally, some patients have died from drug interactions. In one recent patient death from drug interactions, the Sergeant actually told his doctors he was feeling disoriented as a result of the medication and that he could not function. The doctors did not alter the medication or determine if there was an interaction and the Sergeant later died. Patients and their families can help to alert doctors to side effects and possible drug interactions and should be certain to follow up with their doctor immediately. Patients of government-run, Army, and Veterans' Administration hospitals may have recourse under the Federal Tort Claims Act if they are injured.

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As many medical schools don’t have conflict of interest policies that are as strong as hospitals’, drug companies often market directly to young doctors and students to gain an advantage. Many drug companies spend billions in marketing to doctors and students which is more than they spend on research or marketing. The Association of American Medical Colleges hopes that by limiting drug companies’ access to students to help cure conflicts of interest, bias, and curb the reciprocal benefit exchange between doctors and drug companies. Hopefully, medical schools following this program might help to curb medical malpractice and conflicts of interest in the future.

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One of the greatest organizational problems facing hospitals today is the battle over medical records. Many patients find that it can take months or years to get a hold of their own medical records after treatment. Even worse, some families of victims of medical malpractice or wrongful death have waited for years to obtain their loved one’s medical records from hospitals. Often, lost or missing records are simply part of hospital error and not a deliberate attempt to delay, but on some occasions hospitals may frustrate a patient’s records request purposefully. Patients and victims’ families must be aware that statutes of limitation often require that medical malpractice lawsuits be filed within a certain period of time after the injury occurs or is discovered. This means that patients and victims’ families must decide to file a medical malpractice lawsuit and contact their medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible and begin the medical records request process.

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The Department of Health and Human Services recently released its patient survey where hospital patients rate their experiences and patient care in a format much like a restaurant guide.

The survey showed some troubling results for Chicago area hospitals including some reports of patient dissatisfaction and hospital care statistics that need serious attention. For instance, four out of ten Illinois hospital patients responding to the survey indicated that they had to wait longer than expected when they needed help or called for assistance. Nearly one third of Illinois hospital patients felt that the hospital did not manage their pain properly. Additionally, only 57% of hospital patients thought that the hospital’s staff properly explained the benefits and risks of medication before administering it.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to make this survey mandatory for every US hospital; though the survey was voluntary in 2007, the Department will reduce Medicare funding for hospitals that do not participate in the survey.

Read the full news story here, and access the survey here.

The FDA has received 62 reports of deaths over the past 15 months of patients who were treated with heparin, made by Chicago-area Baxter International. In Cook county, Dennis Quaid, a popular actor, has filed suit against Baxter for the wrongful death of his twin daughters after they received excessive doses of heparin. Baxter recalled most of its heparin products in February.

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The Supreme Court will hear a case next term that could decide whether drug companies may escape liability for harm caused by their products and hide behind FDA approval. The issue in the case involves Johnson & Johnson’s prescription birth control patch, Ortho Evra, which delivered much more estrogen than the company originally disclosed. The Ortho Evra patch was a popular form of birth control as an alternative to the birth control pill. For women, medication dosing errors of estrogen may cause an increased risk of blood clots and strokes and has been linked to one death.

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A new study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that about 1 in 15 children are harmed each year by medication dosing errors at hospitals. The study revealed that children are harmed by dosing errors and incorrect medication substantially more often than previously thought. The study also revealed that some of these dosing errors and patient injuries could be prevented easily.

Medication dosing errors in children are the central issue in popular actor Dennis Quaid’s lawsuit in Chicago against Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter Healthcare. Quaid is suing Baxter, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, after Quaid’s baby twins received a Heparin overdose. The medical malpractice lawsuit is pending before Judge Quinn in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The full text of the Pediatrics study is available here.

A woman who suffered a seizure as a result of negligent manufacturing of a drug and medical malpractice is seeking compensation for her preventable medical expenses but has repeatedly been denied. After having worn a pain patch containing a Fentanyl gel for several years, it unexpectedly leaked, exposing the woman directly to Fentanyl, a powerful opiate 80 times stronger than morphine. After overdosing on Fentanyl, the woman went to the emergency room where she was mistakenly administered twice the recommended dosage of a drug used to counter overdoses, leading to a seizure. She sought compensation from the hospital for her unnecessary medical bills, but her requests continue to be denied. The patch has been recalled from the market.

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It was recently revealed that a clinic had reused syringes and vials of medicine. With a large clientele, this clinic could have potentially exposed 40,000 patients to HIV and hepatitis B and C. This Southern Nevada clinic is now facing numerous medical malpractice lawsuits.

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A physician has filed a lawsuit against her own hospital after being pushed out for attempting to report major events of medical malpractice and gross negligence. Following state inspections of the facility, the federal government has halted Medicare and Medicaid funding to the hospital until it is able to meet minimum standards of safety. One inspection found “immediate jeopardy” in the hospital’s administration of medication to its patients. The lawsuit further alleges numerous specific incidents of malpractice and negligence. The physician even observed one patient’s intravenous needle dripping onto the floor and another patient was not given her prescribed antibiotics for three days.

The physician filed the lawsuit only after attempting to file complaints with hospital administration. However, instead of resolving blatant violations of the standard of care, administrators harassed the physician and told her to stop writing formal complaints, suggesting she speak with the risk manager at the hospital prior before writing any formal complaint. The physician was even told to cater breakfast for the nurses who were upset that she was filing too many reports.

A chief inspector for the state concluded there were serious violations in the hospital’s ability to detect and correct medication errors. He stated that these violations demonstrate the poor quality of oversight at the hospital, a problem that originates with staff not following orders. The hospital was one of five facilities that have similarly been stripped of Medicare and Medicaid funding.

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A $22 million verdict was recently awarded in a Cook County, Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit. The jury ruled that the hospital was negligent during the birth of a 34-year-old woman's son in that staff did not properly treat difficulties with the woman's blood pressure. The woman went to an Evanston hospital two weeks before her scheduled date of delivery due to complaints of severe headache and abdominal discomfort. Medical staff soon noticed that the woman had unusually high blood pressure. Tests eventually showed that she had HELLP syndrome, meaning that she had a low platelet count and elevated liver enzymes, or hemolytic anemia. Attorneys alleged that she was not treated properly for this problem, by being given the wrong amounts of medication at the wrong times. Her son was successfully delivered by cesarean section, but the woman's blood pressure rose and she suffered a major brain hemorrhage, dying four days later. The jury found that hospital staff was negligent and that she was irreplaceable to her son and husband, ultimately awarding the multi-million dollar verdict.

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In a recent medical malpractice lawsuit, a birth injury that was allegedly caused by a nurse-doctor communication breakdown yielded a $1.2 million settlement. Nurses were concerned that the birth was taking too long, but were hesitant to consult the doctor about these fears due to his reputation of angry responses to perceived criticism. The infant developed cerebral palsy.

Physicians too commonly react harshly to instances where they feel bothered by the nursing staff, such as late-night clarification requests, difficulties with procedures, changes in patient condition and more. The negative consequences of verbal abuse or disruption in hospitals are significant; reduced communication, team collaboration, information transfer and concentration are all reported as responses to disruptive behavior. Patient safety is compromised in many ways by these reported breakdowns. Medical errors increase in disruptive or abusive situations and the quality of care decreases. Patient mortality increases with these outbursts. Medication errors have also been caused by verbally abusive hospital staff relations.

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If physicians do not warn patients of the risks medications have on driving ability, they now can be held liable in an automobile accident lawsuit. In a recent suit, a boy was killed in a car accident by a man prescribed eight different medications by his doctor and was not warned of their side effects. The doctor now faces a wrongful death lawsuit based on his medical negligence. According to the mother of the victim's attorney, the doctor should have warned his patient that the medications he was prescribed are known to have certain side effects such as drowsiness, dizziness and fainting. The doctor should also have warned his patient not to drive. The doctor claimed that this medical mistake was too far removed from the car accident tragedy, but the court ruled that a possible consequence of that negligence could be harm to others.