Following up on a previous post regarding the reporting of preventable adverse events and transparency for patients choosing medical and hospital care, USA Today has today reported that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will resume reporting data on eight different “hospital acquired conditions,” including air embolism, blood incompatibility, catheter-associated infections, falls and trauma, retained foreign objects, pressure ulcers (bedsores), uncontrolled blood sugar levels, and urinary tract infections. CMS had stopped publicly reporting this data in early August of 2014, . . . Continue Reading
Here’s a link to Oklahoma Senator (and physician) Tom Coburn’s recent report on his investigation of Veterans’ Administration hospitals. According to Senator Coburn, “Over the past decade, more than 1,000 veterans may have died as a result of the VA’s misconduct and the VA has paid out nearly $1 billion to veterans and their families for its medical malpractice.” Here at SCBMA we are often asked to investigate, and do pursue cases against our local Baltimore VA Hospital, as well as at area military medical . . . Continue Reading
A few days ago, the Baltimore Sun reported on the under-reporting of serious medical errors, known by hospitals as “preventable adverse events,” and which, according to a recent journal article for doctors published in the Journal of Patient Safety , kill more than 400,000 Americans every year (and seriously injure 10-20 times as many). According to the Journal of Patient Safety article: “[O]ur country is distinguished for its patchwork of medical care subsystems that can require patients to bounce around a complex maze of providers as they seek . . . Continue Reading
