Medical errors arising out of missed test reports are surprisingly common at VA facilities, according to a new report published in JAMA Internal Medicine. As a medical malpractice attorney, I am always interested in public perceptions about healthcare. One popular opinion is that the care provided at VA medical centers is often poor quality. My experience tells [...]
Medical errors frequently arise out of use of anticoagulants such as Heparin, Warfarin and Coumadin. These errors cause harm when the level of anticoagulation is either too high, leading to bleeding complications, or too low, leading to clotting problems. Either type of complication can have catastrophic consequences, such as hemorrhagic stroke, thromboembolic stroke, pulmonary embolism, HIT [...]
What causes doctors to misdiagnosis a medical condition? After all, they are trained to diagnose and treat all kinds of medical conditions and we expect them to keep us safe and to accurately diagnose us so that we can prevent avoidable harm. They are taught in medical school to use the differential diagnosis method to [...]
Many medical errors would be avoided with some simple changes in habit by healthcare workers, according to a 2013 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sponsored an initiative to add recommendations for improving healthcare to their 2001 publication "Making Health Care Safer." These new recommendations are meant to prevent surgical [...]
Medical errors in pathology often lead to unnecessary treatment or a delayed diagnosis of disease. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology found that mistakes occur in up to 3.5% of prostate biopsies that are analyzed by reference labs. This high error rate is attributed to mis-read pathology and also biopsy specimens being switched [...]
What makes Mishkind Kulwicki Law successful is that we care! We know that when a serious injury or death occurs, you need a law firm that you can depend upon for truthful, professional and competent representation. We understand that when a serious injury or death occurs, you need qualified yet compassionate representation. At Mishkind Kulwicki [...]
Medical errors in the management of suicidal patients is a death sentence. Suicide rates are climbing in the U.S., so primary care providers (PCPs) are facing more encounters with suicidal patients. In this blogpost, I will discuss treatment guidelines set forth in the Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry for suicidal patients. The [...]
As we have seen, medical errors occur for many reasons. The Institute of Medicine report, which shows that the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of patients dies every day in American hospitals due to preventable medical mistakes, lays some of the blame on poor institutional practices. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare have leveled criticism at [...]
Why do medical errors or medical mistakes continue to happen? We read about efforts that are being made to improve surgical safety. Timeouts before surgery to make sure that everything is in order are common. Checking patient wristbands is standard practice. Asking patients to state their name and date of birth and whether they understand what [...]
Kaiser Health News recently published an article about the risk of medical errors posed by elderly physicians. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), about 42% of U.S. doctors are older than 55 and 21% are older than 65. According to the Kaiser Health News article, "[t]heir ranks are expected to increase as many work past the traditional [...]