Georgia Personal Injury Law Blog : Atlanta Georgia Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Jason R. Schultz Law Firm : Wrongful Death, Malpractice, Car Accidents : Georgia

A new study by the Mayo Clinic shows that major medical errors by surgeons are strongly connected to mental distress, depression and burnout.  The study included the participation of 7,905 surgeons, out of which 700 reported making major medical errors recently. There were some startling facts revealed in the study.

• Close to 9 percent of surgeons had made a “major” error in the three months before the survey.
• More than 70 percent of the surgeons attributed these errors to internal factors, and not systemic or organizational causes.
• Symptoms of burnout including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, as well as the surgeon’s mental quality of life, were closely linked to these errors.

According to the study’s authors, the research indicates that a surgeon’s mental state of mind may have a close bearing on the quality of care he can offer patients. However, there seems to be no link between the number of medical errors and the number of hours the surgeon worked, number of days on call per week, compensation method or work setting. This means that, according to the survey at least, reducing the number of work hours for surgeons may not have much impact on lowering mental stress. However, since the study was based on self reporting by surgeons, we can assume the findings are fairly limited.

It is definitely of concern that these errors also effect the surgeon and his level of confidence.  The Mayo Clinic researchers revealed that a surgeon can experience anguish and depression due to his/her errors, and the negative feelings can continue for years. This only places the surgeon’s future patients at risk from more medical errors. 

As an Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer, I am greatly concerned about these surgical errors, because these involve invasive techniques, and can have a lasting impact on a patient’s health and quality of life post-surgery. Rather than discussing tort reform, we should be analyzing ways that surgeons can deal with burnout and emotional distress, so they can take better care of their patients.

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According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, hospital medication errors injure close to 1.5 million people every year. That’s a lot of mistakes, and many of them will leave patients with serious or even fatal consequences. These errors form the basis of several medical malpractice lawsuits filed in Georgia every year.

In Athens Georgia, St. Mary’s Health Care System has launched a bar-coding system. It's called the Bedside Medication Verification System, and it has cost the hospital close to $1 million. This is how the system works – each patient is given a hospital issued bracelet with a barcode printed on it. The code contains vital information about the patient’s information, including medications and dosage. The drugs in the hospital pharmacy will also have a corresponding barcode labeling. When a nurse visits a patient to dispense medication, she scans the barcode on the patient's identification bracelet, and then scans the medication. A mismatch will lead to a mobile device sounding an alarm, thus dramatically reducing the chances that the patients will be given the wrong dosage or the wrong medication.

St. Mary's has been looking for more developed technology that can reduce the number of hospital deaths linked to medication errors. The staff and the hospital have spent close to a year training for the barcode program, and the rollout which began in December last year has slowly expanded to cover almost the entire hospital. Initial feedback from patients and nurses about the effectiveness of the system has been extremely positive. Using the barcode every time nurses have to give a patient his medication, administer and injection or setup an IV drip takes some time, but hospital staff say it’s worth the effort.

The Bedside Medicine Verification system is being added to hospitals around the country. It ensures that medication management includes all 5 components that make it 100% safe – right patient, right dosage, right route, right time and right medication. Hospital safety advocates estimate that although the numbers of hospitals installing the system are increasing, these are still available at only about 15% of the hospitals in the country. The cost of purchasing and installing the equipment as well as training staff to use it properly is obviously one of the primary concerns. However, it makes more sense that you invest in a system that cuts down on preventable hospital medication errors, instead of having to deal with Georgia medical malpractice lawyers after these errors take place.

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I came across this report that only confirms what Georgia medical malpractice lawyers have known all along – that simple basic steps are, in a majority of cases,  all that’s needed to prevent surgical and medical errors.

An international study covering a number of countries, both in the developing as well as developed world, probed the link between following a checklist of safety measures - much like the one you would tick off to make sure that your car was fine tuned and ready to go just before you set off on a cross country ride – and a corresponding effect on patient safety. The results were mind-blowing. Following a pre-defined safety checklist before and after a surgery, cut post-surgery death rates by almost half, and dramatically reduced the number of surgical errors that are caused in operating rooms around the world every day.

The checklist was developed by the World Health Organization, and includes at least a few steps that are also included in American hospital operating rooms. It includes basic steps that are often missed in an operating room, like making sure that the patient has no allergies, clearly marking the part to be operated on, ensuring that all X-rays and scans that are necessary during the procedure are in the operating room, and that all staff members know their roles during the procedure.

The results of following the checklist were monitored in a diverse range of eight cities from New Delhi to Seattle.   The results of using the checklist were clear to see - after the new procedures were followed, death rates after surgery fell by almost half. There was also a major drop in the number of complications that arose after surgery.

Already many countries are moving to have the checklist made mandatory in their operating rooms. The Joint Commission has said that it will consider making most of the measures on the checklist mandatory in surgical theaters.

Medical malpractice lawyers often get a bad reputation for rising insurance rates, doctor's defensive treatment of illnesses etc., etc.  however, as this study has revealed, these lawsuits are filed because some care falls below the standard of care while performing a surgical or medical procedure (not exercising reasonable care under the circumstances), leaving patients with serious and potentially life threatening conditions.  Marking spots to be operated, checking thoroughly to make sure that all sponges, scalpels and needles are accounted for after surgery are not high tech measures that are difficult to follow.  Simple steps can protect a patient's life and prevent serious complications and reduce the need to hire an experienced Atlanta medical malpractice attorney.

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