Massachusetts Injury Lawyer Blog

A new Medicare report found that U.S. hospital employees are failing to report the majority of medical errors they make or observe.

The report found only one out of seven medical errors and adverse events are being reported. In these cases, hospitals investigated, but often made no change to prevent future medical errors.

The report was issued today by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. In reviewing 293 cases in which patients had been harmed, the inspector general found 40 cases were reported to hospital managers and 28 were investigated by hospitals. Only five cases prompted change.

The inspector general estimated more than 130,000 Medicare beneficiaries experienced one or more adverse events or medical errors in hospitals in one month.

The review defined adverse events as medication errors, hospital-acquired infections,
excessive bleeding linked to blood thinner, severe bedsores and overuse of painkillers. Other adverse events at hospitals may include surgical errors, birth injuries and failure to respond to a hospital alarm.

The review found that many hospital employees were fearful about reporting medical errors after the Institute of Medicine's 1999 landmark report, which estimated up to 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year from preventable medical errors.

But here, employees often failed to recognize what constitutes patient harm, did not realize patients were harmed or assumed someone else would report it. In some cases, employees thought the mistake was so common it did not require reporting.

In recent years, hospitals have been required to track medical errors and adverse patient events as part of their Medicare contract. At least 27 states, including Massachusetts, have implemented laws for mandated reporting of healthcare errors.

Following the inspector general's report, Medicare officials plan to develop a list of "reportable events" for hospitals and employees. Hospitals are also being asked to give employees their own instructions.

Click for a New York TImes article about this review.

Click for a review of state reporting laws from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Continue reading "Medical Errors: Just 1 of 7 Reported By Hospital Staff" »

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is studying why some medical facilities are failing to properly sterilize medical devices for reuse in surgeries and endoscopy procedures.

The result is patients are being exposed to microscopic amounts of blood, body fluids and tissues from other patients, according to a recent FDA Consumer Update. This exposure may have resulted because the devices were not properly reprocessed, cleaned, disinfected or sterilized.

Patients are being exposed through surgical instruments such as clamps, forceps and endoscopes. Endoscopy procedures are often performed to diagnose cancer and other illness.

The FDA states that transmission of infection was extremely rare in reports it has received about patient exposure. It states the risk for acquiring an infection from a reused medical device is low.

The FDA states patients can protect themselves by learning about their medical procedure and asking their medical facility what steps it takes to reprocess surgical instruments.

The agency suggests patients also research their procedures on the websites of professional organizations, such as the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The FDA is working to prevent this type of medical malpractice by:

• Making sure manufacturers are providing clear cleaning instructions.


• Making sure hospitals and staff understand and follow the instructions.


• Improving medical device design to facilitate cleaning and sterilization.

Continue reading "Defective Surgical Instruments and Medical Devices Under FDA Scrutiny" »

As the problem of alarm fatigue comes under increased scrutiny, Massachusetts General Hospital has implemented steps to improve the medical staff's response to patient alarms and avoid unnecessary deaths.

Alarm fatigue at hospitals has received much attention in the past year as it has led to several patient deaths and illnesses throughout Massachusetts. Alarm fatigue is a type of medical malpractice caused when nurses and medical staff work among numerous alarms, many false, and grow desensitized to the many sounds and fail to respond to patients.

At Mass. General Hospital, an 89-year-old man died in January 2010 as he recovered from surgery and awaited implantation of a cardiac pacemaker. State and federal investigators reported 10 nurses on duty said they failed to hear alarms beeping at the central nurses' station. The nurses also said they never saw ticker signs indicating the patient's dropping heart rate on three hallway signs.

In April, Mass. General Hospital settled a medical malpractice claim made by the patient's family for $850,000. After an internal investigation, the Boston hospital also implemented several improvements to reduce this form of medical malpractice, including disabling the off switches of 1,100 cardiac monitors, educating nurses about alarms and installing speakers so alarms are heard more clearly. The medical malpractice settlement was reported today by The Boston Globe on Nov. 28, 2011.

Another medical malpractice lawsuit is pending against Mass. General Hospital after a 47-year-old woman died in the hospital in January 2009. The state Department of Public Health found the patient's cardiac monitor was not setting off alarms.

Other hospitals experiencing problems with alarm fatigue include UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. In September 2011, The Boston Globe reported the hospital had two wrongful deaths over the past four years due to failure to respond to patient alarms. In one case, nurses failed to respond to alarms for almost an hour. The hospital is now taking steps such as holding monthly drills for medical staff and arranging voluntary seminars and webinars for the hospitals 2,100 nurses.

The hospital has also started sending low-battery warnings to nurses' cell phones and pagers for life-threatening changes in patients.

Hospitals are not alone in addressing the problem. Last month, the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration attended a summit in Washington D.C. In future months, they are expected to make recommendations for the medical community.

Continue reading "Medical Malpractice, Alarm Fatigue Get Attention" »

An appeal by a plaintiff in a medical malpractice case involving a failure to diagnose cancer has led to a new trial. The Appeals Court reversed the directed verdict, entered by Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady, after finding that the judge had improperly allowed the defendant's motion for a directed verdict.

The case arose from the treatment of a patient who was having complaints of hoarseness and acid reflux. After several months of delay, a CT scan on the neck was finally performed, which revealed the presence of tumor near the esophagus and in the lung; the tumor was affecting the nerves which controlled the vocal cords. A biopsy revealed a non-small cell cancer which was staged at Stage 3B. Treatment was unsuccessful, and the patient died a year and a half later.

Claims were brought for medical malpractice resulting in conscious pain and suffering, wrongful death, and negligent infliction of emotional distress, among others. At trial, the plaintiff's expert was prepared to testify that if it had been diagnosed in a timely manner, the cancer would have been at Stage 2 or possibly Stage 1. Judge Brady would not permit the testimony of "possibly Stage 1" and eventually foreclosed any meaningful expert testimony on his opinion about the stage of the cancer. Those rulings set the stage for the judge's allowance of the defendant's motion for a directed verdict.

On appeal, the Massachusetts Appeals Court found that the testimony about the tumor being "possible Stage 1" was properly excluded, but that the testimony about the tumor being likely Stage 2 was improperly excluded. Accordingly, the judge's ruling was reversed, and the plaintiff will now have a second chance at trial.

The Appeals Court also recapitulated the necessary evidence for cases involving the loss of a chance when a physician fails to diagnose cancer. Loss of a chance cases require opinion evidence on the stage of the cancer at the time the diagnosis should have been made. The evidence does not require exact staging; a range of stages is permissible. Also required is evidence on the likelihood of survival after a timely diagnosis. The evidence must include an opinion about the difference in likelihood which more probably than not resulted from the delay. Citing Matsuyama v. Birnbaum, 452 Mass. 1 (2008), the Court noted:

Under a loss of chance theory, a "plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the physician's negligence caused the plaintiff's injury, where the injury consists of the diminished likelihood of achieving a more favorable medical outcome." Id. at 17. The court explained: "[P]robability of survival is part of the patient's condition. When a physician's negligence diminishes or destroys a patient's chance of survival, the patient has suffered real injury. The patient has lost something of great value: a chance to survive, to be cured, or otherwise to achieve a more favorable medical outcome.... Thus we recognize loss of chance not as a theory of causation, but as a theory of injury." Id. at 16.

The case decided was Carreri v. Isihara, Mass.App.Ct. No. 10-P-109 (August 25, 2011).

Continue reading "Medical Malpractice Appeal Leads to New Trial in Massachusetts Superior Court" »

A new review of hospital care shows patient deaths at hospitals rise 8 percent in July, making it clear that medical errors increase when the new interns and residents begin treating patients.

"The July Effect," has been widely discussed and studied for years, but a new paper published in this week's Annals of Internal Medicine stands apart as the first systematic review of past studies. The review found that in July, patient deaths rise in teaching hospitals as new medical students arrive and 20 to 30 percent of the most experienced doctors leave. The review made the finding based on the largest and best-designed studies of recent years.

The mistakes are not limited to patients having surgery. Last year, The Journal of General Internal Medicine found that fatal medication errors increased 10 percent in July. The increase was greatest in geographic regions with a large number of teaching hospitals.

Patients should use this review to make the best decisions for their care. If you are having a non-emergency procedure, ask your doctor to postpone it until the fall. If you must visit the hospital, bring a detailed medication record and ask a friend or relative to act as your medical advocate. Make sure you have an updated Health Care Proxy.

Under the Massachusetts Patients' Bill of Rights, you may also refuse treatment. The Patients' Bill of Rights gives you the absolute right to refuse treatment or examination from a medical student or other staff members. Refusing treatment from a particular person, or from medical students, will not jeopardize your access to proper medical care.

The Boston medical malpractice lawyers at Breakstone, White & Gluck are experienced in handling hospital malpractice cases involving medical errors, surgical malpractice and anesthesia malpractice. If you have been injured in a medical malpractice case, contact us today at 617-723-7676 or use our contact form.

Each year, more than 150,000 people lose their lives following surgery, even more than the number who die in motor vehicle accidents, according to The Checklist Manifesto by Dr. Atul Gawande. It is a hard number because the majority of surgical errors are preventable.

Gawande, a physician at Brigham & Women's Hospital, worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) to study use of safety checklists at a number of hospitals around the world. Within months, hospitals using the checklists saw major complications and injuries drop by 35 percent and deaths drop by 47 percent, Gawande reported in his 2010 book.

Many hospitals have since implemented use of the WHO surgical checklist or another protocol. On Wednesday, the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) will bring the issue back into focus with "National Time Out Day."

During the Time Out process, the operating team stops before surgery, runs down the surgical safety checklist and confirms the identity of the patient, the procedure and site of the operation, along with other key information.

More than 300 professional organizations have endorsed the use of a Time Out protocol, but AORN is urging more hospitals to adopt the practice and for those who do to encourage greater participation among all members of the staff.

We encourage all hospitals, surgical teams and patients to pay attention to the safety checklist and Time Out process. If you're a patient, ask if your hospital uses a checklist. If your hospital doesn't, find another one. The checklist is critical to saving lives.

Learn About Surgical Safety Checklists
The best way to understand the Time Out process is to see it in action. Click to watch the following video.

Click here to look at the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist.

Click here to look at the AORN Comprehensive Surgical Checklist. This checklist is slightly longer because it brings the WHO checklist together with standards called for by the Joint Commission's Universal Protocol.

Continue reading "National Time Out Day: Eliminating Preventable Surgical Errors" »

The statistics about hospital-acquired infections are alarming. Each year, two million patients in Massachusetts and across the country acquire an infection in a hospital - or about one in every 20 patients.

Hospital-acquired infections are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States each year, claiming 100,000 lives.These infections cost the U.S. health care system between $30 and $40 billion annually in medical malpractice and treatment costs.

Many of these infections begin with neglect of what should be a hospital basic: doctors, nurses and other providers washing their hands before they treat patients. But studies have shown they are often not scrubbing up. In one study of intensive care units, health care workers only washed 25 percent of the time.

Hospitals have worked to increase their hand-washing rates over the years. That work includes monitoring how often soap dispensers need to be refilled and human observers, both observers who announce themselves and those who watch health care workers without their knowledge.

But neither solution can assess the level of hand-washing compliance in a comprehensive manner - or solve it. As for human observers, they can only provide as much monitoring as payroll resources can spare. That's never going to be every hospital worker. In addition, data is usually entered into a computer weeks or months later. When it comes time to analyze data and recommend change, a hospital's staff and habits may be different.

Many hospitals are now seeking answers from technology. Several companies are offering electronic badge systems that identify whether doctors and nurses have washed their hands before working with the patient.

Here's how it works: When a health worker washes his hands or uses alcohol rub, a sensor on his badge smells the alcohol and registers it. When he enters a patient's room, another sensor will read the badge. If the health care worker has recently washed his hands, his badge will display a green light or other indicator. If he has not, the badge will emit a signal reminding him.

Hospitals around the country are testing the systems, with many reporting a drop in infection rates. Miami Children's Hospital used one of the systems, HyGreen, in its oncology unit and reported an 89 percent drop in infections. The hospital says the gains have been maintained eight months later.

Click here to read more about this topic in The New York Times.

Continue reading "Reducing Hospital Acquired Infections With New Handwashing Technology" »

Hospitals need always be accountable for their patient safety efforts. But their successes and failures move into the spotlight next week during Patient Safety Awareness Week.

It's a good time for the public to learn about the Massachusetts hospitals and medical offices they frequent - and ask how they can better protect themselves from medical malpractice and medical errors. Here are some tips from the Massachusetts medical malpractice lawyers at Breakstone, White & Gluck:

1) Check Your Doctor's Medical License. You can learn about a doctor's safety record before even calling his or her office for an appointment. The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine offers patients the Physician's Profile online database. Consumers can access a wealth of information from their own computer, including how long a physician has been licensed in Massachusetts and whether a physician has made a medical malpractice payment in the past 10 years.

To visit the Massachusetts Physician's Profile database, click here.

2) Obtain Your Medical Records. It's important to obtain a copy of your medical records if you suspect medical malpractice. In Massachusetts, you have an absolute right to get copies, whether you were treated in a doctor's office or a hospital.

Call the medical provider and request your records. You will have to sign an authorization form that states you authorize the release of records in compliance with HIPPA, a federal law passed to protect confidentiality of medical records.

Request the complete "page-by-page" chart of your medical care. You will have to pay a copying fee so request an invoice beforehand to be prepared.

Most important about requesting your medical records is do it immediately following treatment. Medical malpractice lawyers often see medical records in their cases have been altered, making it harder to prove medical negligence occurred.

To learn more about obtaining your Massachusetts medical records, click here.

3) Consider Asking A Family Member Or Friend To Act As Your Patient Advocate. You should always participate in your own patient care. But when in the hospital, many people can benefit from having a patient advocate watch out for them.

Ask someone close to you to act as your advocate. This person can help you by monitoring medications, being present when physicians make rounds and making sure medical professionals always practice good hygiene. A good patient advocate will also be prepared to ask doctors and nurses questions.

To learn more about the role of patient advocate, click here.

4) Learn About The Massachusetts Patients' Bill of Rights. Be aware that Massachusetts General Laws include a Patients' Bill of Rights. Among the protections provided: the right to refuse treatment by students and other staff, the right to refuse participation in research studies and the right to informed consent.

To learn more about the Massachusetts Patients' Bill of Rights, click here.

5) Work to Prevent Medicine Errors. Medication errors result from use of improper medicine and the improper dosage.

Make sure all your doctors know every medication you take. Bring a written list to each appointment and make your doctors aware of changes since your last visit.

Before leaving a doctor's office, make sure you know what medicine you are supposed to pick up at the pharmacy and how long you should take it. Write down the name and dose of the medicine, then carefully compare it to the medicine bottles before leaving the pharmacy. Watch closely for unfamiliar abbreviations on medication bottles and whether you are receiving a brand name medicine or generic.

For more tips on how to prevent medication errors, click here for information from the Institute of Medicine.

Continue reading "Patient Safety Awareness Week Time For Patients To Learn " »

Continue reading "Surgical Checklists, Reducing Malpractice and Saving Patient Lives" »

Some 216 hospital deaths nationwide are being linked to problems with alarms on patient monitors and medical staff failing to respond, found a Boston Globe investigation.

The Globe analyzed the Food and Drug Administration's database of adverse events involving medical devices from January 2005 to June 2010.

In many cases, the problem wasn't defective medical alarms. The medical industry calls the problem, "alarm fatigue." Hospitals are using more medical alarms than ever to monitor patients, all of which have different sounds and speeds depending on the severity of the physical symptom.

In one case, a 15-bed unit at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, staff documented an average of 942 alarms per day - about one critical alarm every 90 seconds.

The result, hospital administrators say, is nurses have become desensitized to the constant beeping. And patient safety advocates say their medical negligence is resulting in patients suffering wrongful deaths, including in Massachusetts hospitals.

"Hospitals must establish a "zero tolerance" for patient injuries or deaths due to alarm errors or so-called "alarm fatigue," according to Boston medical malpractice lawyer Marc Breakstone. "These devices save lives. They not only have to work, but the staff has to respond immediately when they sound. Anything less is unacceptable."

One case dates back to September 2008 at Tobey Hospital in Wareham. An 87-year-old man was wearing a wireless heart monitor that started to weaken. He later died and a state investigation found his EKG displayed a flat line on a monitor at the nurses' station for over two hours without a response.

Cases of medical negligence such as these are driving change at Massachusetts hospitals.

Southcoast Health System, which manages Tobey Hospital, is hiring nurses and giving them one assignment: responding and monitoring patient monitors. It has also established a policy that monitor batteries must be changed at a certain time each day.

At UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, the hospital wants to eliminate unnecessary monitoring and has implemented new guidelines for when doctors should order cardiac monitoring. Among other changes, nurses are now receiving low-battery warnings about patients on their pagers and cell phones.

As hospitals make these changes, manufacturers are assessing their equipment and working on new "smart monitor" technology. Rather than measure just one symptom, the hope is these new monitors would assess multiple parts of the body before determining whether an alarm needs to sound. For its part, the Food and Drug Administration recently distributed videos about defective medical alarms and proper use to 4,500 hospitals and nursing homes.

Continue reading "Investigation Finds Hospital Staff Not Responding to Medical Alarms " »

A comprehensive study into hospital care found serious and fatal medical errors are occurring at the same rate, despite new programs implemented to improve patient safety.

The study analyzed patient care in 10 North Carolina hospitals from 2002 to 2007 and found no decrease in medicine errors, hospital-acquired infections and other medical mistakes. The study is said to be one of the most thorough assessments into patient safety since 1999, when the Institute of Medicine released a report that found medical mistakes caused 98,000 deaths and over 1 million injuries annually in the United States.

The study will be published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research team focused on North Carolina hospitals because compared to other states, it has seen more patient safety initiatives. But the study still found medical errors and medical malpractice in a large number of cases.

The study reviewed records of 2,341 patients admitted to the hospitals and found 18 percent had been harmed by medical malpractice, some more than once.

Of these, 63.1 percent of injuries were preventable and 2.9 percent of patients suffered permanent injury, such as brain damage. Some 2.4 percent of medical errors caused or contributed to the patient's wrongful death.

Medical errors also increased costs by extending hospital stays for 42.7 percent of patients.

Medication errors caused 162 problems. Computerized systems for ordering medication can eliminate up to 80 percent of errors, the study's author, Dr. Christopher P. Landrigan of Harvard Medical School told The New York Times. Only 17 percent of hospitals use these systems.

But Landrigan said the number of medical errors is likely even greater than his study revealed because patient reporting is voluntary. He called for a monitoring system at the federal level to identify more mistakes.

The study further noted that many problems were caused by the hospitals' failure to use measures designed to prevent mistakes and wrongful deaths. Landrigan said safety protocols and checklists are fundamental to improving safety.

"Until there is a more coordinated effort to implement those strategies proven beneficial, I think that progress in patient safety will be very slow," he said.

To read more about the study, click here.

Continue reading "Study Finds Patient Safety Not Improving in Hospitals" »

A Massachusetts General Hospital surgeon has publicly acknowledged his medical error in a national medical journal and called on his colleagues to employ safety.

Two years ago, Dr. David Ring was scheduled to perform a routine surgery on a woman with carpal tunnel syndrome.

But problems began to emerge when the operating room was changed at the last minute. The woman was moved to another room. Dr. Ring reported to the first room and performed the carpal tunnel repair on another woman at the hospital for a finger operation.

There were several other complications, but the most significant was that the "timeout" process never occurred. This is when the surgical team runs through a checklist to make sure all necessary safety tips have been taken before surgery. Dr. Ring spoke to the patient in Spanish and other members of the surgical team thought he was running through the timeout process, but he wasn't.

Dr. Ring discussed his errors in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, urging his medical colleagues to take the time to properly follow safety procedures.

"I hope that none of you ever have to go through what my patient and I went through,'' Ring wrote. "I no longer see these protocols as a burden. That is the lesson.''

Breakstone, White & Gluck praises Dr. David Ring for discussing his medical error and reminding other medical professionals to follow safety procedures. We hope his colleagues hear his message. Because when safety procedures are followed, patients stay safe and costly medical lawsuits are avoided.

"We applaud Dr. Ring for publishing this article in the New England Journal of Medicine," said Marc Breakstone, a Boston medical malpractice lawyer. "This should be a clarion call to all surgeons to take extra care to protect patient safety.

To read Dr. Ring's article in the New England Journal of Medicine, click here.

To read a Boston Globe article about the case, click here.

Continue reading " MGH Doctor Issues a Reminder for Safety" »

A year after Massachusetts clamped down on drug companies treating doctors to dinner, a new analysis shows the state's physicians and researchers earned $6.3 million from pharmaceutical interests over two years.

The figure emerges as many Massachusetts hospitals and medical institutions have stopped allowing staff to moonlight for pharmaceutical companies. The arrangement typically involves a physician performing consulting work or speaking to other physicians about one of the company's drugs.

The Boston Globe and online news outlet ProPublica conducted the analysis covering 2009 and 2010.The review showed doctors at Harvard Medical School collected 45 percent of the $6.3 million going to all Massachusetts doctors. One company, Eli Lilly, was responsible for a large amount of the Harvard payments, including 50 percent in 2009 and 33 percent in the first three months of 2010.

Other pharmaceutical companies reviewed were Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Cephalon and the Johnson & Johnson companies.

Doctors drew a wide range of speaking fees, starting at $2,000 to $3,000 for a couple of events. An elite group of two dozen Massachusetts doctors added $40,000 to $100,000 to their incomes.

Awareness of the close relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies has increased in recent years. Last year, Massachusetts implemented its so-called "Doctors' Gift Ban." Pharmaceutical companies are no longer allowed to pick up the check for a physician's meal and the law established more stringent reporting requirements for consulting and speaking engagements.

Now Massachusetts hospitals and medical networks are banning doctors from speaking or consulting for pharmaceutical companies. Among them are Partners HealthCare, which includes Brigham & Women's, Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals.

The Boston medical malpractice lawyers at Breakstone, White & Gluck applaud the review by The Boston Globe and ProPublica. The review serves the public interest by revealing the large sums Massachusetts physicians are earning in direct conflict of their primary obligation: caring for patients.

Click here to read The Boston Globe article about pharmaceutical company payments to doctors.

Click here to read about the Massachusetts Doctors' Gift Ban law passed in 2009.

Continue reading "Massachusetts Doctors Net $6.3 Million from Pharmaceutical Companies" »

Weeks after GlaxoSmithKline (Glaxo) agreed to pay a large settlement to resolve claims alleging its Paxil antidepressant caused birth defects, hundreds of families nationwide are coming forward with new claims.

In July, Glaxo agreed to pay more than $1 billion to resolve 800 cases in which women who took Paxil during pregnancy had children with birth defects, including heart defects, head and brain injuries, abdominal complications and Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn. The women were never warned not to take the drug while pregnant.

"GlaxoSmithKline knew that when Paxil was taken during pregnancy it created a risk of birth defects," said Ronald Gluck, a Boston product liability lawyer at Breakstone, White & Gluck who is handling Paxil cases.

"Yet, they failed to warn of this fact until it was too late for many mothers. It is important for women who were taking Paxil during pregnancy and whose children suffered birth defects to act now."

Glaxo has set aside $2.4 billion to resolve new claims involving Paxil and its Avandia diabetes drug.

The recent Paxil birth defects settlement followed a Philadelphia case that was tried in fall 2009. In that case, a jury ordered Glaxo to pay $2.5 million in damages to the family of Lyam Kilker, a 3-year-old boy born with a heart defect after his mother took Paxil during pregnancy.

The jury concluded Glaxo, "negligently failed to warn," the doctor treating the boy's mother about Paxil's risks and that the medicine was a, "factual cause" of the child's heart defect.

Paxil has had a widespread impact on families. Some 600 families are waiting to try Paxil birth defect cases in Pennsylvania. There are at least 500 cases in Texas and California attorneys are gathering cases as well.

Paxil has not been the subject of a product recall, but the Food and Drug Administration required Glaxo to add a warning to the antidepressant's label in 2005 following studies linking the drug to birth defects. Specifically, the studies found that women who took Paxil during the first three months of pregnancy were one-and-a-half to two times more likely to have a baby with a birth defect than other women.

If you have a child who has suffered a birth defect as a result of Paxil, it is important to obtain legal advice. Contact Breakstone, White & Gluck today toll-free at 800-379-1244 or visit our website. We can advise you on your rights and options.

Continue reading "Glaxo Sets Aside Large Sum to Resolve Paxil Birth Defect Lawsuits" »

A recent study in the journal Health Affairs draws attention to the dollars medical malpractice lawsuits and defensive medicine are adding to America's health care bill. The study shows that medical liability has a far smaller cost on the system than previously believed.

The study, written by three Harvard professors and a colleague at the University of Melbourne in Australia, estimates that medical liability spending totaled $55.6 billion in 2008. This equates to 2.4 percent of total health care spending. Additionally, $8 out of every $10 dollars - or $45.6 billion - went directly to defensive medicine by physicians who ordered more comprehensive testing than in the past to avoid a misdiagnosis and potential lawsuit.

The study stands apart for its rigorous attempts to quantify individual costs of the medical liability system, including payments to medical malpractice plaintiffs, defensive medicine and administrative costs. Past studies have lacked this detail and without it, there can be no meaningful discussion.

The study shows the costs of medical malpractice and defensive medicine are not draining the health care system, especially given the majority of the money spent in these areas went directly to testing aimed at ensuring patients walked out of the hospital safe.

The study's authors made a similar comment, saying the dollar amount is "not trivial," but, "is less than some imaginative estimates put forward in the health reform debate."

The study gains relevance several months after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The comprehensive reform bill expands insurance coverage and awards state grants to investigate areas of the health care system, such as alternatives to medical malpractice lawsuits.

A Republican movement has sought to go further by restricting medical malpractice claims. But the study supports the opinion that restricting claims is not the answer. Providing patients who have been harmed the ability to file a lawsuit remains a critical check on the health care system.

Lawmakers would be best served to leave medical malpractice reform alone and focus on another area of the federal health care law: quality control and cost savings. The law's National Quality Strategy section calls on the country to develop a national strategy identifying priorities such as patient health outcomes and a measurement system.

While there are many areas to explore, quality can be improved and savings achieved by reducing use of the emergency room for non-critical needs. An ER visit is costly and doctors and staff have neither the time nor the resources to provide the care each patient needs. Most of the time, patients who are treated and sent home still need to follow up with their primary care doctor.

To read a New York Times article about the study, click here.

For more on the new federal health care reform law, click here.

Continue reading "Study: Medical Malpractice Claims Not As Costly As Believed" »