Articles Posted in Hospital Negligence

A man died from Sepsis after being treated at the Elmhurst hospital in New York City. More investigation will be necessary to determine if the hospital committed medical malpractice. The patient, 59 year old Antonio Flores, showed up at the emergency room of the hospital on July 7th after sustaining a minor injury in a bicycle accident. He was treated and sent back home. The patient came back to the hospital on July 10th and died there from Sepsis the following day.

Sepsis is a potentially life threatening condition that occurs as a complication of an infection. Commonly acquired in healthcare facilities, sepsis if detected early can be treated.

Eelmhurst Hospital has a very good reputation in preventing Sepsis. In 2013 the Hospital won an award at HHC’s Patient Safety Exposition 2013 for hospital achievement in preventing complications and death from Sepsis. At the time Dr. Scott Weingart who was director of critical care in the ER and a co-chair of the STOP Sepsis collaborative had developed a standard treatment protocol to promptly deliver fluids and restore blood pressure. His best practice model called Early Goal-Directed Therapy is based on intense identification, monitoring and treatment of septic patients with unstable blood pressure by promptly giving intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

To let a dementia patient wander out of a hospital in New York constitutes medical malpractice that can result in serious injury and in some cases the death of the patient.

On Monday, Mt Sinai Roosevelt Hospital located on 10th Avenue in Manhattan called the police after they discovered that one of their patients with dementia eloped from the hospital. 58 year old Nilsaida Smiley, a hospital patient who has been there for the past year, wandered out of the hospital barefoot in a red t-shirt and blue pajama bottoms. The police are now asking New Yorkers to help them to find her. The woman is 58 years old, 5-foot-3 and 115 pounds. She is black with brown eyes and black hair. Anyone who saw her can call the Police at 800-577-TIPS. A dementia patient who gets lost in New York is at high risk of injury or death from falls, accidents and exposure.

According to a report from the Alzheimer’s Association, approximately 35% of the hospital population has some type of dementia. Wandering is a common habit for people with Alzheimer’s or dementia. It is the hospitals responsibility to keep them safe and prevent them from elopement. If a loved one suffers from dementia and needs to be hospitalized make sure that the hospital has a specific policy and rules in place. Hospitals who are effectively  protecting their most vulnerable patients will usually have the following:

As medical technologies are getting increasingly sophisticated so do the risks for hospital negligence and medical malpractice. The ECRI Institute recently released its 2016_Top_10_Hospital_C-Suite_Watch_List and going through this list almost feels like reading a sci-fi novel. Link to 30 page detailed report on blog.  Here is an overlook of the top 10 new medical technologies that hospitals should put on their watch list:

1. Mobile Stroke Units are high tech ambulances specially outfitted with equipment allowing patients to be diagnosed and if necessary treated directly at their home by a specifically trained staff.  The units are also equipped with telemedecine technology that allows the mobile staff to communicate directly with remote clinical personnel. Strokes are a leading cause of death and traumatic brain injury. Timing is crucial and a reduction of time between the diagnosis and the treatment can save lives and reduce severe injuries.
2. Medical Device Cybersecurity is a major risk to patients that hospitals have been so far unable to fully control. Medical devices such as a pace-maker or infusion pump are connected through a wire or wifi  to the Electronic Health Record of a patient. These devices can often be too easily hacked. Thieves can then use the personal data for identity theft or to invade the home of the patient when he or she is in the hospital.  In other cases it may even be a murder weapon. Dick Cheney’s doctor had the wifi disabled on his pace-maker due to fear he may be hacked to be assassinated.