Our partner Stephen Mackauf and John E. Hall Jr. from Hall Booth Smith, P.C. will co chair the 12th Annual Advanced Forum of the American Conference Institute on Obstetric Malpractice Claims on June 26th-27 2013 in Philadelphia. For more iinformation see our prior post here.
Percutaneous nephrolithotomy, or PCNL, is a minimally invasive urological surgery during which a surgeon removes medium to large kidney stones through a small incision in the back using a hollow scope. The use of PCNL is increasing especially among women and complications are on the rise particularly blood infections. Patients are at risk of developing complications if they are older, sicker and treated in more recent years. Age is significantly associated with increased odds of mortality according to a research from from Khurshid R. Ghani, M.D., of Henry Ford Hospital’s Vattikuti Urology Institute, which was published in the Journal of Urology.
A new study conducted by Dr. Srini Tridandapani, of Emory University and presented at the American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting found that adding a picture of the patient to every imaging study would decrease wrong patient error by five fold.
In “The Receding Tide of Medical Malpractice Litigation” Professor David A. Hyman University of Illinois, School of Law and School of Medicine, Professor Bernard Black Northwestern University, Law School and Kellogg School of Management, and Myungho Paik Northwestern University, School of Law look over 20 years of national trends in Medical Malpractice Llitigation in cap and non cap states.
The study shows a substantial decline of Medical Malpractice Litigation nationally both in cap and non cap states. The aggregate payout by physicians represents now 0.1% of health care spending. The dollars directly at stake in med mal reform are small and the introduction of a national cap would only bring negligible savings.
Source: “Receding Tide of Medical Malpractice Litigation”, Northwestern University Law School Law and Economics Research Paper No. 12-18, University of Illinois Program in Law, Behavior and Social Science Research Paper No. LE12-13
A recent study on safety in hospitals conducted by Consumer Reports shows that hospitals are not a safe place to be.
For this study Consumer Reports magazine ranked more than 2000 hospitals based on the following criteria:
-Infections aquired in hospitals
-likelyhood to be re-admitted in 30 days
-communication issues around drugs and discharge
-likelyhood to get too many CT scans
-likelyhood of complications
Dr John Santa, director of Consumer Reports’ Health Ratings Center, was recently on “CBS This Morning” (see video below) to express his concerns.
In the New York area, out of 70 hospitals studied, 58 hospitals rank below the national average when it comes to safety.
Among these hospitals 27 out of the 28 teaching hospitals are scoring below average with some of them among the worst of the nation. The only teaching hospital in the New York region that scores above average is the the Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, NY with a safety score of 58 out of 100.
Teaching hospitals are supposed to lead by example as they are training the future doctors of our nation. It is an alarming fact that most teaching hospitals in the New York area are actually the most unsafe in the country.
In the New York area, the worst teaching hospitals when it comes to safety are the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. with 22 points, the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center Health Care System in the Bronx, N.Y. with 25 points, the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y. with 28 points, Harlem Hospital Center in New York City with 28 points and the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y. with 29 points.
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