Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

“Malpractice claims may capture nonlethal errors; however, they are most often associated with permanent disability or death. Only about 1% of adverse events due to medical negligence result in a claim.” write David E. Newman-Toker, MD and Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH in this article commenting on Singh H, Giardina TD, Meyer AND, Forjuoh SN, Reis MD, Thomas EJ. Types and origins of diagnostic errors in primary care settings [published online February 25, 2013]. JAMA Intern Meddoi: .1001/jamainternmed.2013.2777.

The Newman-Toker article from JAMA Intern Med. 2013;():1-2. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.225 was Published online February 25, 2013. The authors go on to state;

“Nevertheless, with more than half a billion primary care visits annually in the United States, if these data from Singh et al are generalizable, at least 50 000 missed diagnostic opportunities occur each year at US primary care visits, most resulting in considerable harm. Combining this figure with autopsy-based estimates of US hospital deaths from diagnostic errors (40 000/y to 80 000/y1) and unaccounted nonlethal morbidity from hospital misdiagnoses and acknowledging another half billion visits annually to non–primary care physicians, more than 150 000 patients per year in the United States might have undergone misdiagnosis-related harm.”

From USA TODAY: In a stunning article Peter Eisler reports that “Thousands of patients a year leave the nation’s operating rooms with surgical items in their bodies. And despite occasional tales of forceps, clamps and other hardware showing up in post-operative X-rays, those items are almost never the problem. Most often, it’s the gauzy, cotton sponges that doctors use throughout operations to soak up blood and other fluids, a USA TODAY examination shows.”

He goes on to report that despite this thousands of hospitals and surgical centers have failed to adopt readily available technologies that all but eliminate the risk of leaving sponges in patients.

He further points out that there’s no federal reporting requirement when hospitals leave sponges or other items in patients, but research studies and government data suggest it happens between 4,500 and 6,000 times a year. That’s up to twice government estimates, which run closer to 3,000 cases, and sponges account for more than two-thirds of all incidents.

From The New York State Trial Lawyers Association:

“New York’s healthcare industry has long pressed for enactment of so-called “tort reform” so they can be relieved of supposedly “excessive” medical liability payments. In fact, payments to medical malpractice victims have already declined substantially:

• The number of medical malpractice claims filed in New York courts has declined every year since 2007. Fewer claims were filed in 2012 than in any year since 1992, even as New York’s population grew.

From Reuters: “Missed or wrong diagnoses are common in primary care and may put some patients at risk of serious complications, according to a U.S. study.” The study appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine. David Newman-Toker from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who co-wrote a commentary on the study was quoted as follows in the article;

“We have every reason to believe that diagnostic errors are a major, major public health problem,” Newman-Toker told Reuters Health. “You’re really talking about at least 150,000 people per year, deaths or disabilities that are resulting from this problem.”

The article goes on to state that, “Most of the missed diagnoses were traced back to the office visit and the doctor not getting an accurate patient history, doing a full exam or ordering the correct tests.”