That question is currently being asked in a courtroom in Kitsap County. Intuitive Surgical, the maker of the da Vinci surgical system, is defending itself from accusations that it isn’t safe when the company’s profits drive surgeons and hospitals to use it without proper training.
In modern hospitals the health care providers rely more and more on machines. A patient’s well-being is maintained through monitoring devices (picture the screen above the patient’s bed showing a pulse), breathing-assistance machines, and drug dispensing methods. The failure of any of these devices, or a malfunction, can adversely affect the patient’s well-being or even cause a death.
Medical errors and negligence can lead to the death of a patient. When it does, a claim is more than one for medical negligence; it becomes a wrongful death case.
Cases relating to obstetrical malpractice are often the most complex and costly cases a lawyer will handle. Part of the reason is that the injuries are often so catastrophic: a child may be born with cerebral palsy or brain damage that will result in huge care costs for the child’s lifetime. Those care costs can amount to many millions of dollars. And, of course, the impact of a disabled child on the parents can be life-long and devastating to their family.
In almost every medical malpractice claim, there are related medical expenses that were paid by health insurance or by a government program, such as Medicare or Medicaid. What most people don’t realize is that, when there is a settlement of a malpractice claim, the health insurance company or the government program usually has a right to be repaid all or part of the amounts it paid for medical care caused by the malpractice.
All medical negligence attorneys deal with cases in which a surgical error or mistake caused great injury or even death. The difficulty is in proving that the surgeon was negligent. The mere fact of a bad outcome does not establish negligence, and the burden is on the claimant to present expert testimony that the surgeon was negligent in causing the injury.
A recent trend in Washington is changing the face of hospital medical care. Hospitals are merging, acquiring other hospitals, or otherwise entering into arrangements for some kind of operating control or joint practice. Examples include Swedish Medical Center, which has taken over the former Stevens Hospital (now called Swedish Edmonds). Swedish, in turn, is now in a partnership arrangement with the Providence hospital group in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.
The issue of transparency in hospitals is not a new one, particularly when errors occur. On the one hand, hospitals prefer not to disclose information that might open them up to liability due to an error that resulted in injury to a patient. Hospitals also argue that allowing it to have a degree of privacy makes patients safer, because they can have internal discussions about what went wrong and fix the problem so that it hopefully will not happen again.