Albany, New York Personal Injury Blog

When you visit a medical provider you most likely watch them type or write notes as you explain your condition. If you are like most people, you have probably wondered just what is being said about you in your medical record. Most of us may never know. Even though a patient is absolutely entitled to get a copy of his or her medical records under New York Public Health Law Sections 17 and 18, access can prove challenging.

A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has shown that patients may benefit when their medical records are openly shared and easily accessible. Such an approach encourages patients to be more engaged in their health and wellbeing.

Jan Walker, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the study's lead author explained, "Knowledge is power....A patient goes to the doctor only once in a while but in between visits, you're making all kinds of decisions that affect your health every single day."

By creating more of a collaborative environment, patients may take more ownership of their health and therefore make better decisions. Patients may better understand treatment plans, avoid medication errors and remember to follow-up about various conditions. Additionally, patients may notice if their physician misunderstood them, or if there are inaccuracies in their medial record.

By now almost everyone has heard of the dangers of distracted driving along with the troubling statistics about the number of injuries and deaths the behavior causes. But have you heard about "distracted doctoring"? The New York Times recently reported on this troubling trend going on in many hospitals and clinics.

As medical records have become electronic, and hospitals have heavily invested in technologies to reduce medical errors, more health care providers have access to devices that can be useful, but also cause distraction leading to medical malpractice. Doctors can be distracted by computers, smartphones, iPads and any number of technological gadgets they now frequently have within reach.

Medical malpractice cases can be some of the most complicated cases to litigate. Not only do cases often require significant investigation and expert testimony, but lawyers are frequently tasked with explaining complex scientific arguments to judges and juries with little to no medical background.

To help remedy this problem, one Bronx judge began focusing on medical malpractice cases, using his specialized knowledge to help parties settle claims before trial. That judge - Justice Douglas McKeon -now handles about 12 to 15 cases per month, bringing litigants in for frank discussions about the facts of their case and its probable value.

Fifteen years after Justice McKeon began his work, the federal government has provided a $3 million grant for a pilot program to expand so-called "medical malpractice courts" into Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Erie County.

The pilot is designed to target high population areas that have both a large number of medical malpractice cases and high hospital malpractice costs.

Medication errors injure approximately 1.3 million Americans each year and cause, on average, at least one death every day. All told, these errors cost over $3.5 billion each year.

The Federal Drug Administration lists several common causes of the errors, including poor communication, poor procedures or techniques, confusing packaging and ambiguities in product names or abbreviations. Unfortunately, many medication errors can be traced to the same route cause - medical professionals who make mistakes because they are stressed-out, exhausted or distracted.

"Quiet Zone" an Intentional Response to Dangerous Errors

A new initiative at Egleston children's hospital in Atlanta is attempting to reverse this trend. The hospital has set up a dedicated quiet zone that nurses can use to place medication orders without being interrupted. Hospital leaders created the zone two years ago after noticing that distracted staff members were making potentially dangerous errors when ordering medicine.

Since the zone has been implemented, medication errors at the hospital have been reduced by two-thirds.

Egleston's example is being held up by Medicare and Medicaid chief Dr. Donald Berwick as an example for the rest of the nation to follow - not only because it will reduce costs and promote efficiency, but because it will save lives. Dr. Berwick has witnessed dangerous medication mistakes at even the most renowned hospitals. In fact, as a young resident he mistakenly gave the wrong transfusion to a baby, nearly killing the child.

Access to doctors is usually thought to be an issue for Americans that live without health insurance. However, for the many Americans that receive public insurance, such as through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), access to a physician is also a concern.

Due to differences in how much doctors are paid by private insurance companies and public insurance programs, there is concern that doctors give scheduling priority to patients who have private insurance. According to the New York Times, many doctors refuse to take Medicaid recipients as patients due to the low payments for services and repeated threats to cut Medicaid fees.

To check if doctors truly gave scheduling preference to patients with private insurance, the Obama Administration proposed randomly auditing doctors from around the country. Often called "doctor shopping," the audit would consist of calling doctors' offices with callers posing as new patients looking to schedule an appointment. Using a script, two calls would be made -one stating the caller had private insurance and one stating the caller had public insurance - both would give the offices symptoms of conditions that require "urgent" evaluation.

A patient can have a difficult time coping with the knowledge that his or her doctor made a mistake, and rightly so. Doctors are supposed to help their patients, not potentially harm them as the result of negligence, medical errors or medical malpractice.

Unfortunately, medical errors are not at all uncommon in America's health care system. Surgical errors, considered highly preventable, still occur roughly once in every 75,000 surgeries. Considering how many surgeries take place in the United States each day, many patients are being harmed.

On the bright side, some health care systems have been successfully tackling the problem of medical errors. According to a recent study, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the nation's largest integrated health care organization, has made a number of improvements which have contributed to a decrease in medical errors.

Despite being born 16 weeks early, baby Genesis was quickly adapting to life outside the womb. His parents were thrilled with his progress until his recovery took a tragic turn. His mother was told to come to the hospital immediately, where she saw CPR being administered to her son. After 40 minutes, Genesis was pronounced dead.

What caused the sudden change in Genesis' health? - A huge overdose of sodium chloride. How did it happen? The wrong data was entered into a computer program by a pharmacy technician processing an electronic IV order. The automatic alerts built into the IV compounding machine were not activated.

Although not the first time new medical technologies have contributed to potential medical malpractice, the case of baby Genesis highlights some of the problems as technology is being more heavily integrated into hospitals.

July is a wonderful month in many respects, summer is in full swing, and people are enjoying nice weather and time outside. For hospital patients, however, studies show July can be a dangerous time.

Why is this summer month an unfortunate time to visit the hospital? There is a so-called "July Effect". Every year in July, experienced residents leave the hospitals they have been working at, and new doctors fresh out of medical school arrive to take their places.

Incoming residents not only have less clinical knowledge, but also are inexperienced with hospital systems. For example, being unfamiliar with the hospital's pharmacy system, new doctors ordering prescriptions may make mistakes in drug dosages. Or, incoming residents may order more unneeded tests resulting in longer hospital stays.