Showing posts with label Iatrogenesis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iatrogenesis. Show all posts

Thursday, April 14, 2011

When to sue your doctor or hospital Should you? | Eye Opener: The Nash & Associates Blog | %post_tags%

Recently, a CNN article titled “Harmed in the Hospital? Should You Sue?” described the story of a two-year-old baby with a septic infection who waited about five hours in the emergency department before being seen by a physician. The child ultimately needed several amputations as a result of the delay in medical treatment.

Using this tragic story as a point of reference, the article suggests a number of criteria to help patients decide when to sue and when not to sue a health care provider. For example, the article correctly suggests that a patient who has not sustained injury should not sue a health care provider even if the health care provider’s conduct might have been negligent. In medical malpractice cases, a plaintiff seeks monetary compensation for injuries. If there are no identifiable injuries, there simply isn’t a case for medical malpractice.

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Monday, April 4, 2011

Hospital Acquired Infections Becomes A Leading Cause In Patient Deaths | OneMedPlace

Patients today are between a rock and a hard place because when they get sick a hospital may be the last place they want to go. Hospital Acquired Infections, also known as Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) are the 4th leading cause of patient deaths, killing 270 people per day in the USA. Recently the Federal Government and Payers are implementing incentives and penalties on hospitals that are not doing all they can to reduce HAIs.

HAIs are defined as infections not present and without evidence of incubation at the time of admission to a health care setting. Within hours after admission, a patient’s flora begins to acquire characteristics of the surrounding bacterial pool. Most infections that become clinically evident after 48 hours of hospitalization are considered hospital-acquired. Infections that occur after the patient is discharged from the hospital can be considered healthcare-associated if the organisms were acquired during the hospital stay.  There have been several cases of patients going into the hospital for minor surgeries and coming out in coffins, yet limited media coverage has been devoted to this area of concern.

Healthcare-associated infections can be localized or systemic, can involve any system of the body, be associated with medical devices or blood product transfusions. Three major sites of healthcare-associated infections are bloodstream infection, pneumonia, and urinary tract infection. HAIs result in excess length of stay, mortality and healthcare costs. In 2002, an estimated 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections occurred in the United States, resulting in 99,000 deaths.  In March 2009, the CDC released a report estimating overall annual direct medical costs of healthcare-associated infections that ranged from $28-45 billion.

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Epidemic of Preventable Medical Harm, HealthcarePSI.org

The Centers for Disease Control reports that 1.7 million people who enter the hospital this year - for any reason - will contract a Hospital Acquired Infection which is completely unrelated to the condition they entered with, and 99,000 of those patients infected will die within the year. Many thousands more will never fully recover.

The Sepsis Alliance - a physician group studying the condition - states that 215,000 people die each year from sepsis, a blood stream infection. The Alliance also states that half of those deaths could be prevented if hospitals would identify and treat patients in a timely manner.

In November 2010, the Office of the Inspector General released a damning report stating that every month in US hospitals, 15,000 Medicare patients over the age of 65 are killed by preventable medical harm. That's 180,000 needless deaths a year. Another 45,000 Seniors on Medicare are injured every month, but survive their hospitalization.

The three studies above document more than 386,000 preventable deaths a year in US hospitals - and that's only a small glimpse of a problem that has reached epidemic proportions. 

The Institutes of Medicine estimates there are 100,000 documented preventable harm deaths per year, however they also reluctantly admit that only 5%-20% of preventable medical harm incidents are ever documented on patient records. That means their figure is badly underestimated. By how much? You do the math. 

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Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
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856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

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Monday, March 21, 2011

When Nurse Staffing Drops, Mortality Rates Rise: Study

When nurse staffing levels fell below target levels in a large hospital, more patients died, a new study discovered.

The finding may provide guidance in an era of nursing shortages and cost-cutting, in that the focus should shift from cost to patient safety, said the authors of the research, appearing in the March 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Hospitals need to know what their nursing needs are for their patients, and they need to bring staffing into line," said study senior author Jack Needleman, a professor of health services at the School of Public Health of the University of California Los Angeles.

"Patients are entitled to be safe in the hospital and to have care delivered reliably and to have nurses with enough time to make sure they aren't developing avoidable complications with permanent consequences," Needleman said.

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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

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Monday, February 28, 2011

Rare Fractures Linked To Drugs For Weak Bones : NPR

The study found 716 atypical fractures among more than 200,000 Ontario women over 68. The researchers calculate the risk at one or two atypical fractures for every 1,000 women who took bisphosphonate drugs for more than five years.

An X-ray of Schneider's right femur (thighbone), which broke  suddenly as she was standing on a New York subway train.
Enlarge Courtesy of Dr. Jennifer Schneider

An X-ray of Schneider's right femur (thighbone), which broke suddenly as she was standing on a New York subway train.

An X-ray of Schneider's right femur (thighbone), which broke  suddenly as she was standing on a New York subway train.
Courtesy of Dr. Jennifer Schneider

An X-ray of Schneider's right femur (thighbone), which broke suddenly as she was standing on a New York subway train.

That's fairly rare, and considerably less than the risk of another potential side effect from these drugs, a condition called osteonecrosis of the jaw — the death of part of the jawbone, following a major dental procedure. Still, since tens of millions of women are taking bisphosphonates, the Ontario study suggests thousands of them may suffer devastating atypical fractures every year.

But here's the dilemma: Many women really need these drugs, because they really do work to prevent ordinary hip fractures caused by osteoporosis.

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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
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