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

More evidence revealing that rising health care costs have nothing to do with medical malpractice lawsuits and that changing the liability system will do nothing to curb costs, but will be deterimental to injured patients and their families.  The National Practitioner Data Bank has recently reported that fewer medical malpractice payments were made on behalf of doctors in 2009 than any year on record.

The value of malpractice payments was also the lowest since 1999. Adjusted for inflation, payments were at their lowest since 1992, a Public Citizen analysis of the NPDB shows.

According to the analysis, healthcare spending rose 83 percent from 2000-09, while medical malpractice payments fell 8 percent (both figures are in unadjusted dollars.)

 

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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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Attorneys for a woman who suffered severe facial disfigurement as a result of a botched cosmetic surgery procedure have told the Georgia Supreme Court about the unfairness and injustice of tort reform laws that cap medical malpractice damages.

In 2005, enthusiastic lawmakers cheered on by vested interests, including health care companies and insurers, passed sweeping reform laws that limited the non-economic damages that an injured patient could receive at $350,000. Non-economic damages include those for physical and mental pain and suffering and diminishment of the quality of one’s life. Since the law was passed, hundreds of patients who have suffered serious injuries from the negligence of their health care professionals, including doctors and nurses, have had their recovery options limited.

 

One of those patients, Betty Nestlehutt, visited an Atlanta cosmetic surgeon for a facelift. The results of that surgery illustrate how important it is that doctors continue to be held fully accountable to their patient’s for their negligence. Nestlehutt’s skin was left severely disfigured, and even after extensive treatment, continues to be scarred.

 

A Fulton county jury returned a verdict of $115,000 for her medical expenses and $1.15 million in non-economic damages. The facility, where the surgery was performed, appealed against the verdict. This week, the Supreme Court heard an appeal, and will decide whether placing caps on damages in medical malpractice cases is unconstitutional in Georgia.

This is definitely a case that has been closely followed by injured patients, safety advocates and Fulton County Georgia medical malpractice lawyers . For four years, we have waited and watched frustrated, as the cap severely restricted the rights of victims injured by medical negligence.  Medical malpractice lawsuits are notoriously expensive to litigate, and when damages are capped, it's makes it economically infeasible to pursue a number of meritorious claims for injured patients. The cap limits the rights of ordinary citizens in Georgia and we hope that the Supreme Court will uphold the Georgia Constitution and strike down the cap.

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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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A medical malpractice case which has implications for future lawsuits brought in Georgia headed to the Supreme Court last month. The case involved four doctors who were cleared of negligence in the treatment of a child diagnosed with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. 

Justin Smith contracted the infectious disease in 2003. He was 13 at the time. The four doctors failed to diagnose his symptoms and he was later rushed to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. By the time he was correctly diagnosed and treated, he had already suffered some amount of brain damage.

 

His parents sued the doctors for $3.8 million, but the four physicians were cleared of all charges by a jury. The doctors were able to prove that since the disease is so rare, they were unable to diagnose the symptoms correctly. Lawyers for the doctors also argued that there had been no permanent damage to the boy's health. Now, the Supreme Court gets to decide if a hindsight instruction given to the jury during that trial was error and whether is affected the outcome of the case. The family's lawyer has argued that the hindsight jury instruction should only be given if there was no information available to the physician at the time. The family claimed that the doctors knew about the tick bite and that that should have been sufficient to constitute foreseeability that some injury would result if their son was not treated. The doctors' lawyers insist that the hallmark sign of the disease, rashes, were not present when the child was brought to them for treatment. 

 

Medical Malpractice Lawyers

 

 

Pursuing medical malpractice claims can be a time consuming and complex process, requiring the expertise of an Atlanta medical malpractice lawyer who has years of experience litigating claims and recovering damages for injured patients. If you have been injured as the result of the negligence of a doctor or other healthcare provider, contact a Georgia medical malpractice lawyer  at my office for a free consultation.

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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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The Georgia Supreme Court recently handed down its decision in the case of Amu v. Barnes. It is refreshing to see justice and reason prevail and it is great to have a well written opinion that provides guidance for all Georgians who have suffered injury from misdiagnosis.

The plaintiff alleged that Dr. Amu failed to diagnose his (Mr. Barnes’) condition in January of 2000. The statute of limitations would ordinarily have run in January of 2002 as to the pain, suffering, or economic loss that Mr. Barnes suffered as a result of the misdiagnosis of his condition as it had existed two years earlier. That is true even though Mr. Barnes may have had no knowledge of the actual medical condition during that time period.

This case has finally clearly delineated the “exception” to this harsh rule. The focus now is not on the date that a physician may have committed an act of medical malpractice, but on the date that the victim, Mr. Barnes in this case, suffered an “injury” as a result of that professional negligence.

The “injury” or “new injury” exception has been part of Georgia law for almost 20 years and has been applied or referred to in a myriad of cases. It is not applicable when the evidence demonstrates only that the patient’s existing condition was misdiagnosed and mistreated, and that condition was the same one that existed at the time he or she first sought treatment from the doctor. If the patient’s subsequent symptoms were symptoms of the same injury that existed at the time of the alleged misdiagnosis, then the claim is barred by the two-year limitations period.

In order for this exception to apply, not only must there be evidence that the patient developed a new injury, but he or she also must remain asymptomatic for a period of time following the misdiagnosis. A patient suffers a “new injury” if he or she has a relatively benign and treatable precursor medical condition which, as a proximate result of being misdiagnosed, is left untreated and subsequently develops into a much more serious and debilitating condition. An example would be a mole being negligently misdiagnosed as non-malignant, and later developing into metastatic cancer.

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