It is refreshing to see someone in the insurance industry call for error reduction in health care rather than finding ways to punish palintiff lawyers for doing their jobs.
I am a registered nurse of 27 years with a master in public health (MPH) degree. For the past 18 years, I have advised attorneys on hundreds of cases in which hospitals and nursing homes were accused of preventable errors. I have recently authored a book entitled Protect Yourself in the Hospital: Insider Tips for Avoiding Hospital Mistakes for Yourself or Someone You Love (Contemporary Books/McGraw-Hill; Oct/Nov. 2003; $12.95), which provides life-saving information.
According to the often quoted Harvard University Study of 1999 and other notable reports, almost 100,000 people die in hospitals each year from preventable, accidents, oversights, blunders or abuse. Many more suffer catastrophic injuries such as irreversible brain damage, amputation and paralysis. The most common negligent acts of commission or omission are neglect, failure to provide professional assessments, failure to follow established protocols and policies, incompetently performed procedures, failure to intervene with protective and preventive measures, careless blunders, medication errors, and criminal assaults. The consequences of such acts or failures are traumatic injury, bedsores, choking, nerve damage, infection, narcotic overdose, brain damage respiratory failure, or cardiac arrest. The disturbing aspect to all this is the fact that these mishaps occur in every hospital from coast to coast with alarming regularity.
The solution to the health care/malpractice debacle lies in educating the consumer. Since most hospital mistakes are preventable, the patients and their family members can learn how to recognize most dangerous conditions and situations before death or injury occurs. We also need new legislation that will require hospitals to report and publicly disclose the rate of unexpected deaths and injuries occurring as a result of any medical procedures and/or medications. Furthermore, Hospital management teams can reduce the number of fatal or injurious mistakes by making the patients and family members a part of their continuous quality improvement (CQI) process. They can include the consumers by providing full disclosure of the known perils that lie in wait.
It is refreshing to see someone in the insurance industry call for error reduction in health care rather than finding ways to punish palintiff lawyers for doing their jobs.
I am a registered nurse of 27 years with a master in public health (MPH) degree. For the past 18 years, I have advised attorneys on hundreds of cases in which hospitals and nursing homes were accused of preventable errors. I have recently authored a book entitled Protect Yourself in the Hospital: Insider Tips for Avoiding Hospital Mistakes for Yourself or Someone You Love (Contemporary Books/McGraw-Hill; Oct/Nov. 2003; $12.95), which provides life-saving information.
According to the often quoted Harvard University Study of 1999 and other notable reports, almost 100,000 people die in hospitals each year from preventable, accidents, oversights, blunders or abuse. Many more suffer catastrophic injuries such as irreversible brain damage, amputation and paralysis. The most common negligent acts of commission or omission are neglect, failure to provide professional assessments, failure to follow established protocols and policies, incompetently performed procedures, failure to intervene with protective and preventive measures, careless blunders, medication errors, and criminal assaults. The consequences of such acts or failures are traumatic injury, bedsores, choking, nerve damage, infection, narcotic overdose, brain damage respiratory failure, or cardiac arrest. The disturbing aspect to all this is the fact that these mishaps occur in every hospital from coast to coast with alarming regularity.
The solution to the health care/malpractice debacle lies in educating the consumer. Since most hospital mistakes are preventable, the patients and their family members can learn how to recognize most dangerous conditions and situations before death or injury occurs. We also need new legislation that will require hospitals to report and publicly disclose the rate of unexpected deaths and injuries occurring as a result of any medical procedures and/or medications. Furthermore, Hospital management teams can reduce the number of fatal or injurious mistakes by making the patients and family members a part of their continuous quality improvement (CQI) process. They can include the consumers by providing full disclosure of the known perils that lie in wait.
Thanks for the post! It seems like everyone dislikes injury lawyers – until they need one because someone screws up!
http://www.utahinjury.com