He was sitting on the toilet with his urine saturated pants pulled down and a plastic bag around his neck that wreaked of urine and feces, a nursing assistant testified Tuesday, and her boss, accused of abusing elderly patients, did it to teach him a lesson. (more…)
Medical Negligence & Patient Safety
Texas Health Resources Surgery Study Shows Hospitals Can Profit from their Own Mistakes
Hospitals generate higher operating profit margins from most surgery patients who experience preventable complications than from those who don’t, according to a study to be published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
In other words, hospitals are rewarded for their own mistakes. (more…)
Study: A Few Bad Apples Dominate Patient Complaints About Doctors
It’s tricky. Patients want to be able to shop for high-quality doctors — or at least avoid the bad ones — but the quality information they can access remains spotty at best, even in these days of Yelp and Angie’s List. (more…)
Black, Silver, Hyman: Tort Reform Not the Tonic It’s Touted to Be
In a March 25 commentary in the American-Statesman, Brooke Rollins of the Texas Public Policy Foundation touts the “Texas Miracle” wrought by medical malpractice reforms in 2003. Rollins focuses on the impact of tort reform on the number of physicians and claims that the “results speak for themselves.” And so they do, but they tell a quite different story than she does. (more…)
What Surgeons Leave Behind Costs Some Patients Dearly
Erica Parks knew something wasn’t right in her belly when she left the Alabama hospital that performed her cesarean section in the spring of 2010. (more…)
Protecting your loved ones: Elderly woman dies after nurse refuses CPR
A California retirement home is backing one of its nurses after she refused pleas from a 911 operator to perform CPR on an elderly woman who later died. Tonight we combed through Texas laws and statutes to find out how your loved ones are protected at an independent living facility. Several Central Texas retirement homes told KEYE TV this tragedy is a wakeup call for the industry. (more…)
Justices to Take Up Case on Generic Drug Makers’ Liability
The injuries that Karen Bartlett suffered after taking a mild pain pill are enough to make anyone squeamish.
Ms. Bartlett contends the maker of the drug she took should be liable for her injuries. The drug maker says it was not responsible for the design of the medication. (more…)
My Dad Was Not Ready to Die
Life is fragile, use it roughly. Wrest from it all you can. Love in it what you’ve got. For once it begins to end, the greens in your fridge will rot less quickly than you do.
I know because it’s just happened to my dad. (more…)
Texas’ Tort Reform Law Called Unfair
In 2010, Connie Spears, 56, lost both legs due to what she claimed was an emergency room misdiagnosis.
She sued the health care providers involved but her case was tossed out of court because she could not prove the emergency room doctors acted intentionally with “willful and wanton negligence.” (more…)
Report: State Agencies Fail to Protect Psychiatric Hospital Patients
Lax oversight and biased investigations by Texas state officials have placed vulnerable psychiatric patients at risk for abuse and neglect for two decades, according to a sharply critical investigative report released Monday. (more…)
