Medical Malpractice News and Research

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As Congress weighs COVID liability protections, states shield health providers

Coronavirus patients and their families who believe a doctor, nurse, hospital or other provider made serious mistakes during their care may face a new hurdle if they try to file medical malpractice lawsuits.

15 May 2020

Electronic health records creating a ‘new era’ of health care fraud, officials say

Derek Lewis was working as an electronic health records specialist for the nation's largest hospital chain when he heard about software defects that might even "kill a patient."

23 Dec 2019

A new method to distinguish benign and cancerous skin moles

A new study has reported a cost-effective, more accurate, and less invasive way to diagnose cancerous melanoma cells in skin tumors.

30 Sep 2019

New method can help detect melanoma cells in skin tumors

Melanoma is the least common but one of the most deadly skin cancers. It accounts for only about one percent of all cases globally, but the majority of skin cancer deaths.

30 Sep 2019

Supreme Court declines to hear military medical malpractice case

The family of a young Navy nurse who died after military doctors allegedly failed to halt massive bleeding following childbirth won't get a hearing in the nation's highest court.

21 May 2019

Vanderbilt researchers to develop and test 'safe harbor' standards of care

A team of researchers from Vanderbilt University's schools of Law, Medicine and Management has received a five-year research grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and test "safe harbor" standards of care based on scientific evidence.

22 Apr 2019

New rules will ease patients’ access to electronic medical records, Senate panel says

The chairman of the Senate health committee on Tuesday backed new federal regulations to remove roadblocks patients can face in obtaining copies of their electronic medical records.

27 Mar 2019

Check your medical records for dangerous errors

When Liz Tidyman's elderly parents moved across the country to be closer to their children and grandchildren years ago, they carried their medical records with them in a couple of brown cardboard folders tied with string.

21 Nov 2018

Storage failures of eggs and embryos gain a new perspective

On March 3, 2018, a liquid nitrogen storage tank at the University Hospitals Fertility Center in Cleveland failed. Dr. Eli Adashi, a professor of medical science at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School, characterized the event as a "tragic accident" in which 950 patients lost more than 4,000 frozen eggs and embryos.

20 Nov 2018

‘Grossly unfair’? Widower takes ban on military injury claims to Supreme Court

More than four years after Navy Lt. Rebekah Daniel bled to death within hours of childbirth at a Washington state military hospital, her husband still doesn't know exactly how — or why — it happened.

11 Oct 2018

Online education enhances administration of blood clot-preventing medications

Results of a yearlong study funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) with more than 900 nurses at The Johns Hopkins Hospital suggest that well-designed online education can decrease the rate of nonadministration of prescribed and necessary doses of blood thinners to prevent potentially lethal blood clots in hospitalized patients.

16 Aug 2017

House seeks to cap malpractice awards as part of health care update

Last week, a jury awarded a Pennsylvania man $620,000 for pain and suffering in a medical malpractice lawsuit he filed against a surgeon who mistakenly removed his healthy testicle, leaving the painful, atrophied one intact.

27 Jun 2017

Former football star Beau Orth set to take the stand in multimillion dollar medical malpractice trial

Former football star Beau Orth, known to many Las Vegans as "Orth," is set to take the stand Friday in the multimillion dollar malpractice trial over a surgery he claims ended his playing career and caused lifelong injuries.

29 Aug 2015

Patient sues doctors for defamation, medical malpractice

On June 23, 2015 the Washington Post ran a story titled Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her. While preparing for a colonoscopy, a patient hit "record" on his smartphone to make sure he heard the instructions his doctor would give him after the procedure.

10 Jul 2015

State highlights: Calif. ballot measure updates; Va. prison health care budget shortfall

A selection of health policy stories from California, Arizona, Maine, South Dakota, Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Washington state and Missouri.

21 Oct 2014

New book addresses legal issues for personal injury victims

Personal injury victims often find themselves confused by the complexity of the legal system. Lawsuits are full of convoluted rules and difficult jargon making it harder for people to understand.

21 Oct 2014

State highlights: Calif.'s Prop. 45 fight; new benefits for same sex couples in N.C.; Aetna sheds jobs after Medicaid drop

A selection of health policy stories from California, North Carolina, Delaware, New York, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and Kansas.

17 Oct 2014

Viewpoints: Another troubled website rollout; insurers fight consumer measures in Calif.

If the federal government's new Open Payments website were a consumer product, it would be returned to the manufacturer for a full refund. Open Payments is the government's site for publishing payments made to doctors and teaching hospitals by drug and medical device manufacturers. It includes 4.4 million payments, worth $3.5 billion, to more than half a million doctors and almost 1,360 teaching hospitals (Charles Ornstein, 10/1).

3 Oct 2014

Viewpoints: 'Feud' over health care compact; humane end-of-life care

Never has an issue of The Best Times, Johnson County's monthly magazine for seniors, been so eagerly awaited. I know I've been on the edge of my seat. At first the draw was to read the article that had gotten some Kansas legislators so worked up that 11 of them stormed en masse into a meeting to berate the volunteer members of the Johnson County Commission on Aging for writing it.

27 Sep 2014

State highlights: States want home care worker wage changes delayed; Ga. delays nursing home rate hike

State officials that argued against providing overtime and minimum wage protections to the nation's 2 million home care workers are asking the Department of Labor to push back a Jan. 1 start date for the policy to take effect. State Medicaid officials concerned that their costs will rise are asking for a delay and tweaks to the policy, even though the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized the rule a year ago.

15 Sep 2014