Startling Report Reveals Lack of Oversight, Action on Preventable Medical Errors

by James Lewis

JIm is a Virginia injury attorney who handles car accidents, medical malpractice, FELA, wrongful death, etc.

A New York Times report has revealed that only one out of seven medical errors and accidents involving Medicare patients is reported by hospital employees. If that wasn’t bad enough, even when a medical facility investigates a reported medical error injury, the facility rarely changes its practice to prevent the error from occurring again, according to foxnews.com.

Some of the medical errors the report mentioned included severe bedsores, infections acquired while patients stayed in a hospital, excessive bleeding from improper use of blood thinners and adverse effects from being given too many painkillers. Even some medical errors that led to a patient’s death were not reported.

I just shook my head while reading about this. It’s infuriating to know that many innocent patients who are probably already in pain from whatever caused them to go to the hospital had that pain exacerbated by preventable medical errors. A hospital should be a sanctuary for healing, not a haven for haphazard treatment and negligence.

What’s even more disturbing is that since most medical errors are not reported, we don’t even know the full scope of the problem. Plus, the lack of transparency means the unacceptable status quo is allowed to persist since no one can be sure what refoms are needed.

Dr. Manny Alvarez, the senior managing health editor for the Fox News website, declared that “medical mistakes are one of the biggest problems we have in health care today.” He went on to say that “we’re beginning to see that with more monitoring, we are identifying more problems. The issue however, is that you have to learn from mistakes -- and there are still many doctors and hospitals that do not do that.”

Fundamental changes to how preventable medical errors are reported in hospitals are needed. Allowing six out of seven medical mistakes to go unreported is simply unacceptable. The reforms necessary will probably need to come either from state regulators or the federal government. There probably needs to be some sort of civil or criminal penalty associated with failing to report a blatant medical error and penalties for not executing a plan to correct the error in the future.

To learn more about medical errors, take a look at this article, which was the second in a series written by an experienced medical malpractice attorney in Virginia.

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About the Editors: Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton is a Virginia injury law firm whose attorneys focus on personal injury and accident law and have extensive experience handling medical malpractice and doctor mistake cases. Please take a few moments to review our medical malpractice case results. We have offices in Virginia Beach and Hampton, VA, but we're ready to come to you anywhere in Virginia, including Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News and Suffolk, VA, if you've been seriously hurt by the carelessness of a doctor, surgeon, nurse or pharmacist.

Rick Shapiro and James Lewis have been recognized as among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Also, Rick and Jim have been named Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law since 2010. Fewer than 5 percent of lawyers are chosen for this professional honor.

Members of our VA personal injury law firm have also been selected by the National Million Dollar Advocates Forum since 2009. In addition, we were the first injury law firm in Virginia to join Primerus, a select group of highly ethical and respected law firms. Our VA medical malpractice firm has the highest rating of AV from Martindale-Hubbell, a national lawyer ranking organization, which means we have a reputation for preeminent legal skill.

We offer free special reports on the Top 10 Tips from a Medical Malpractice Insider and the top five surgical errors you must know about.

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Startling Report Reveals Lack of Oversight, Action on Preventable Medical Errors