Technology Hazards in Hospitals and Surgery Centers
Gene Moen
December 10, 2014
Technology has the potential to improve health care, but it also carries with it a number of risks to patient safety.
Technology has the potential to improve health care, but it also carries with it a number of risks to patient safety.
Apology laws are laws that allow a doctor to apologize for a medical error without his apology being used against him in Court. Although I understand wanting to incentivize doctors and other health care providers to apologize when they’ve caused harm, it’s often a hollow gesture when it’s not followed up by some action to make things right.
Some doctors, and many insurance companies, like to talk about "frivolous" malpractice cases, and the problem of paying money to plaintiffs who sometimes don’t even have a valid claim. The reality is that our judicial system has numerous safeguards in place to practically guarantee that a non-meritorious case will not be successful.
Modern medicine has solved many problems, but it hasn’t yet solved hospital-acquired infections. Unfortunately for people harmed by such infections, it is very difficult to bring a claim for injury.
Hand-offs – patient information communicated from one provider to another – are a source of many errors that lead to patient injury. A new study and associated solution is hoping to cut those errors and increase patient safety.
Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs) are a relatively new phenomenon. While there can be some benefit to having a surgical procedure at an ASC, there are good reasons to be careful, not the least of which is that surgeons and anesthesiologists often have a strong financial interest in performing your surgery there, when it may not be the safest choice for you.
For attorneys representing victims of medical malpractice, it is a sad truth that jurors tend to want to find ways to blame the patient victim.
There are real and obvious hazards to patients of electronic health records (EHR).