Healthcare Risk Management articles from April 2002

Healthcare Risk Management archives from April 2002

A new era in liability means keeping criminal charges against docs at bay: trend continuing, but aggressive education efforts may reduce risk.
April 1, 2002... Not too many years ago, the worst thing a risk manager feared was a case of medical malpractice that could cost the health care provider millions of dollars. These days, the nightmare scenario involves the local prosecutor deciding that your...

Pain management cases show the risk of opiates.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... An ongoing case highlights one of the worst fears of physicians -- that they will be prosecuted for using narcotic pain medications with seriously ill patients. In Utah, Robert Weitzel, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, was taking care...

Patient's records show pain, need for opiates.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The medical record of 91-year-old Ellen Anderson, a patient who died while under the care of Robert Weitzel, MD, shows that she was in considerable pain despite contrary arguments from law enforcement officials. When Weitzel was charged...

Criminal cases undermine efforts to improve safety.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Every time a health care provider hears about another one being dragged off to jail for making a medical error, the risk management community's efforts to improve the culture of safety loses ground, says Grena Porto, RN, ARM, DFASHRM, senior...

Compliance, peer review are your best defense.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... It is true that some professionals who monitor criminal charges are extremely discouraged to the point of sounding like they've lost all hope. When asked what risk managers can do to help physicians avoid criminal charges, Jane M. Orient, MD,...

Six strategies to reduce your risk of charges.
April 1, 2002... Criminal charges and the effect they have on risk management efforts can be extremely discouraging for the risk manager. But all is not lost. There are some strategies you can employ to reduce the chance of such charges being brought, and to...

Hospital sued by gay man denied access to partner.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... In what could signal a need for hospitals to revise their longstanding rules about who constitutes "family," a Baltimore hospital is under fire for its refusal to allow a gay man access to his partner during treatment. Bill Flanigan...

Feds: almost all nursing homes are understaffed.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... How's this for a risk management red flag? A recent federal study alleges that nearly every nursing home in the country is understaffed to the point that it cannot provide basic care to patients. The study was mandated by Congress and...

$10 million in funding for efforts to reduce errors.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson recently announced that President Bush will propose $10 million in funding for an initiative to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors. The increased funding will bring the...

Improper payment rates decline in 2001.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently reported that the rate of improper Medicare payments continued to decline last year. The improper payment rate, which estimates the portion of Medicare fee-for-service payments that do...

Suit: mandated translation services never offered.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Two New York hospitals are facing lawsuits that accuse them of failing to offer non-English-speaking patients translation and interpretation services mandated by federal, state, and city law. The legal action was recently filed by the New...

2002 readers' survey.
April 1, 2002... In order to learn more about Healthcare Risk Management subscribers, we are conducting this reader survey. The results will be used to enhance the content and format of HRM. Instructions: Mark the appropriate answers and answer open-ended...

Adult meningitis goes undetected, resulting in death: $2.5 million Ohio settlement.
April 1, 2002... News: After three trips to a hospital emergency department (ED), a 32-year-old woman's meningitis went undetected for days. The lack of timely treatment with antibiotics resulted in her death. The case was confidentially settled during the...

Restrained victim dies: confidential settlements.
April 1, 2002... News: An automobile accident victim was taken to a community hospital emergency department (ED). Once it had been determined that the victim sustained a fracture to his neck, the patient was transferred to a trauma center hospital. In the midst...

Building a bridge over the abyss: will bioterrorism help bring disjointed health system together? Getting in same boat as `tsunami' of money builds.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Diverse and disjointed, the nation's public health and clinical settings have education needs and communication gaps that must be bridged if the system is to improve its response to bioterrorism, a group of consultants recently told the...

CDC gets plenty of advice for action: clarify roles, make info user-friendly.(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A recent consultants' brainstorming session on education and communication needs for bioterrorism resulted in numerous suggestions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Some of the points of information and...

Was anthrax mailer a bioweapons researcher? `This has military lab stamped all over it'.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Given the difficulty of creating high-quality anthrax in a civilian research lab, the original source of the Bacillus anthracis that killed five people last year was likely a U.S. bioweapons facility, the president of the American Society of...

Bioterrorism forensics: the burden of proof: if bug does not fit, you must acquit?(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Already asked by federal investigators to assist in finding the anthrax mailer, the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) is taking the next step and discussing the emerging science of bioterrorism forensics. Despite an impressive array of...

Early results of Leapfrog hospital survey promising: nearly half of institutions contacted provided replies.
April 1, 2002... In mid-2001, a total of 525 hospitals in six regions around the country were invited to complete a web-based patient survey by the Business Roundtable's The Leapfrog Group in Washington, DC. Now, the first returns are in, and The Leapfrog...

Safety tool stresses education and action: tragedy transforms facility into industry model.
April 1, 2002... Two tragic medication errors seven years ago prompted Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to undertake what CEO Jim Conway calls "a journey of change." That journey has led to industrywide praise and recognition, including the recent...