Posts Tagged ‘hospital negligence’

In December 2008, the Ecri Institute released it second annual report on the top 10 technology hazards that should be on every hospital’s list of safety concerns for medical-device use.  The Ecri Institute conducts patient-safety research and investigates medical-device incidents.   Five of the hazards on the list are new. However, all of the five hazards dropped from the list are still seen as “significant concerns.”  The five new hazards just caused more problems in the past year, including retained devices and air embolism from contrast media injectors, causing them to placed on the list. 

The top 10 technology hazards are listed in order as follows:

1.  Alarm hazards
2. Injuries from needle sticks and other sharp objects
3. Air embolism from contrast media injectors
4. Retained devices and unretrieved fragments left in patients
5. Surgical fires
6. Anesthesia hazards due to inadequate pre-use inspection
7. Misleading displays
8. CT radiation dose
9. MR imaging burns
10. Fiberoptic light-source burns
     

While some problems involve a defective medical device, it tends to be inexperience and/or lack of knowledge on the user’s part that causes these devices to be hazardous.  Few people read the manual. If devices are used safely, fewer incidents would occur.  Every participant in the chain during the process has a responsibility to prevent a problem from arising. If you have been a victim of one of these technology hazards or any other technology, you may have a medical malpractice or hospital negligence lawsuit and may be entitled to a medical malpractice settlement.  You should contact a medical malpractice lawyer today for more information.

From 2002 until mid-2008, doctors at one V.A. hospital in Philadelphia made significant medical mistakes in 92 out of 116 brachytherapy procedures, a less invasive method of treating prostate cancer. Most of the errors involved patients receiving too little radiation to effectively treat their cancer, but about 35 veterans received overdoses of radiation to the wrong parts of their bodies. This often occurred because doctors injected radioactive pellets used in the procedures into the wrong organs. Investigators say that it took so long to uncover the mistakes because of insufficient internal and external oversight.

Fortunately no one has died as a result of these errors, but many patients have suffered painful and unnecessary medical complications because of the hospital’s surgical mistakes. The radioactive material used in cancer treatments is a carcinogen and can damage or destroy healthy tissue in addition to cancerous cells. All of the affected patients have obtained follow-up care, and eight had brachytherapy procedures performed properly at another V.A. hospital. Read more about medical malpractice and hospital negligence.