Malpractice and Tort Reform Act of 2003, a class action suit filed in the Marshall court of the Eastern District of Texas argues that the state’s limits on non-economic damages are unconstitutional.

Texans overhauled the Texas civil justice system by adopting the comprehensive tort reform bill (House Bill 4)regarding health care liability claims in 2003, which includes limits on non-economic damages. Economic losses are not capped and include factors like medical costs and lost income.

for full article, copy and paste this link:
http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/208641-class-action-challenges-texas-cap-on-medical-malpractice-damages

A proposal to raise caps in medical malpractice lawsuits is scheduled to be heard by the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Monday.

Senate Bill 164, sponsored by Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver and Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, would raise the caps for non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering) in medical malpractice cases to match those in other types of damage cases. The current cap in medical malpractice cases for non-economic losses is $300,000; in general liability cases it’s $366,000, but that figure is scheduled to be inflation-adjusted this year.

for full article, copy and paste this link:
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/02/11/daily71.html

Hospitals participating in a Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project have been successful in lowering costs while reducing patient mortality and improving in other quality measures, officials said on Thursday, CQ HealthBeat reports. The project, a partnership between CMS and the hospital consortium Premier, involves 250 hospitals, which report on 30 clinical quality measures.

Hospitals participating in the project reported that the median hospital cost per patient decreased by $1,000 during the first three years, while the median mortality rate decreased by 1.87%. If all hospitals in the nation were to achieve the same cost and mortality improvements, hospital costs could be reduced by more than $4.5 billion annually, and about 70,000 deaths per year could be prevented, according to CMS.

for full report, copy and paste this link
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=50199

Bar coding is no small undertaking. With medication administration being the most expensive and demanding component of an overarching initiative, other simpler and less expensive bar-code point-of-care (BPOC) applications might be considered first. These should be easier to slip into your hospital’s budget and once in, should in turn contribute to making room for medication applications.

copy and paste link below to read this blog post:
http://pointofcareforum.com/toolbox/ive_been_thinking_about_preachers_camels_and_commitments

Several private health insurers, such as Aetna and WellPoint, have moved to end reimbursements to hospitals for treatment that results from serious medical errors, the Wall Street Journal reports. The insurers also will not allow their members to be billed for hospital errors.

Last year, CMS announced a rule under which Medicare after September no longer will reimburse hospitals for the treatment of bed sores, falls and six other preventable conditions that occur in the facilities. CMS next year plans to add to the list hospital-acquired infections, blood clots in legs and lungs, and pneumonia contracted from a ventilator.

In hospital contracts that require renewal, Aetna has begun to include a provision that ends reimbursements for 28 “never events” outlined by the National Quality Forum. In Virginia, WellPoint has begun to test a similar policy that ends reimbursements for four never events, and the company plans to expand the policy to Georgia, New England and New York in the near future. UnitedHealth Group and Cigna have considered policies similar to the CMS rule.

copy and paste link for full article:

www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=49829

Most physician-owned specialty hospitals are poorly equipped to handle medical emergencies, federal investigators will report today, underscoring a long-standing concern about the rapid rise in the number of such hospitals.

The report found that 55 percent of 109 physician-owned hospitals reviewed had emergency departments — and that the majority of those had only one bed, wrote Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Fewer than a third of the hospitals had physicians on site at all times, and 34 percent relied on dialing 911 to get emergency medical assistance for patients in trouble, according to the report.

for full story, ciopy and paste this link:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/09/AR2008010903140.html

In nearly a third of cases of sudden cardiac arrest in the hospital, the staff takes too long to respond, increasing the risk of brain damage and death, a new study finds.

Researchers estimate that the delays contribute to thousands of deaths a year in the United States.

The study was based on the records of 6,789 patients at 369 hospitals whose hearts stopped because of conditions that could be reversed with an electrical shock from a defibrillator — a favorite device in TV hospital dramas, when a “code blue” is called and doctors and nurses come running with a crash cart and paddles to shock the victim back to life.

In the real world, doctors and nurses do not always run fast enough. Expert guidelines say the shock should be given within two minutes after the heart stops, but the study found that it took longer in 30 percent of the cases.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/health/research/03heart.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

An article in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, entitled “A Pivotal Medical-Device Case” raises an important issue about the fairness of our civil justice system. Here is the link to the article.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/1/76?query=TOC.

The issue raised by the article is not a new one, but the Defendant is asking the the United States Supreme Court to give broad and sweeping new protection to companies who manufacture defective and dangerous medical devices, even if those devices kill or seriously injure patients. The case discussed in the article is Riegel v. Medtronic, in which the patient was seriously injured because the balloon utilized in a coronary angioplasty surgery ruptured. The Plaintiff in the lawsuit claims that the balloon device was defective. The legal issue is now whether the injured patient is deprived of a legal remedy simply because the Food and Drug Administration had approved the device for use.

The history of medical device liability in this country is not generally known to the public. Some remember the Dalkon shield cases of the 1970’s, in which thousands of women either died or were seriously injured as a result of defective IUD devices. Following those cases, Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate the design and approval of medical devices. Yet, an injured patient has still retained the right to access to the justice system if injured by a defective product, even though the FDA has approved the product. The question before the Supreme Court in Riegel is whether the intent of Congress in granting such authority to the FDA, was to completely remove from the justice system the ability to adjudicate cases claiming that a medical device is defective. So, ask yourself if you would like for the FDA, with all of its political ramifications and lobbying influence, to determine whether an injured patient can have access to the justice system.

Recent news has pointed out the influence of pharmaceutical and medical companies, and their lobbyists, on the FDA approval process and on doctors’ decisions regarding drugs and medical devices. http://www.americastunnelvision.com/editable/medication_error.html. The Supreme Court is now considering whether that influence, with all of its attendant dangers, will deprive patients injured by medical devices of their day in court. Although this case has not received the coverage it deserves in the press, it is vitally important for the rights of injured patients.

Michael Townes Watson, author of America’s Tunnel Vision—How Insurance Companies’ Propaganda Is Corrupting Medicine and Law. www.StopMedicalError.com.

One doctor writes in the New York Times,
“Most doctors are afraid to take responsibility for medical errors. We are acutely aware of the potential hazards — legal and professional — of taking ownership of a mistake. But studies have shown that physicians’ apologies do not necessarily increase malpractice lawsuits. In fact, they may protect against litigation. Seventeen states have enacted legislation encouraging such apologies, some even making physicians’ expressions of remorse inadmissible in court.

It was not always this way. Hospital legal departments routinely used to advise doctors never to admit responsibility for an error.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/health/views/01case.html?ref=science

By his count, Dr. Douglas A. Dorsay has performed nearly 2,000 angioplasties, a procedure where a surgeon threads a catheter through the bloodstream to clear blockages.

By state officials’ count, he did so flawlessly — until one morning in March 2006.

The Florida Board of Medicine disciplined Dorsay in August for his surgical error. He was one of six Southwest Florida doctors, and 73 statewide, with cases before the body in August.

What makes him different is that he is willing to talk about it.

The Sarasota vascular surgeon said he agreed to discuss his case in depth with the Herald-Tribune because both doctors and the public harbor misconceptions about medical errors.

“I’m not trying to hide from it,” Dorsay said. “All of us have made mistakes.”

State records show about 40,000 active, licensed physicians in Florida. Some 1,750 had at least one disciplinary action. Hundreds more have lost their licenses, given them up or moved out of state.

Experts say that countless more errors and near-misses never get reported to state medical boards. Doctors and hospitals worry that disclosing their errors will draw lawsuits and drive away patients — fears that are unfounded, some studies have found.
 

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