Tag Archives: hospital

Surgical Errors Increase Hospital Profits

Hospitals can make much more money when surgery goes wrong and leads to complications that need correcting. And that presents a problem for patients. The financial incentives do not favor better care. The current payment system rewards hospitals for bad care … Continue reading

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Medical Malpractice and Surgeons’ Sleep Deprivation and Patient Safety

Research shows that a surgeon who has been working for 24 hours is impaired as much as a drunk person in thinking and motor function. So should patients have a right to know if their doctor has been up all … Continue reading

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Distracted Doctoring | Electronic Devices Places Patient Safety at Risk

Hoping to decrease the risk of medical error, hospitals and physicians’ offices have invested heavily to place iPads, iPhones and other electronic devices into the hands of medical staff for instant access to patient data, drug information and case studies. … Continue reading

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Defensive Medicine – Patients as ATM Machines

Defensive Medicine refers to the concept that doctors order unnecessary tests and extra medical procedures as a means to avoid medical negligence lawsuits. However, research at Dartmouth Hitchcock College of Medicine and other studies support there is very little evidence … Continue reading

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Lack of Communication – The Number One Cause of Medical Errors

The Joint Commission, which accredits most hospitals in the US and many abroad, consistently identifies communication as the number one cause of medical errors. Healthcare providers are increasingly becoming aware of the opportunities for information to get lost during handoffs … Continue reading

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Preventable Medical Errors – The Third Leading Cause of Death in America

Preventable medical errors kill and seriously injure hundreds of thousands Americans every year. Any discussion of medical negligence that does not involve preventable medical errors ignores this fundamental problem. Reducing medical errors is the best way to address all problems … Continue reading

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Emergency Room Medical Malpractice

A hospital emergency room is an area where medical errors are common and often overlooked. Because of the increasing patient load and the need to triage patients by order of medical urgency, many things often go clinically wrong in an … Continue reading

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Medical Negligence & The Joint Commission – List of Top 10 Sentinel Events

A Sentinel Event is defined by The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) as an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof. Serious personal injury specifically includes loss of limb or function. … Continue reading

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Medical Negligence – A Cause of Nosocomial Infection

Hand-washing is widely recognized as the single most effective hospital practice to prevent nosocomial infections. The most common way infections are spread by hospital staff is cross-contamination –omission of washing hands between patients. Studies support doctors are the biggest offenders … Continue reading

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Honor Roll – Best Children’s Hospitals 2012-13

The 2012-13 Best Children’s Hospitals features 80 different hospitals that ranked among the top 50 in at least one of 10 specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, gastroenterology, neonatology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology. … Continue reading

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