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News from Reiter & Walsh, P.C.

Almost 100,000 Deaths Each Year Caused by MEDICAL ERRORS

A Recent Institute of Medicine report revealed that up to 98,000 Americans are killed in hospitals every year and thousands more are injured due to medical errors that could have been avoided. This makes doctor mistakes one of the leading causes of death! According to the FDA, an astonishing 1.3 million Americans are injured every year because of medication mistakes.

  1. Make sure your doctors and nurses wash their hands. Doctors and nurses can avoid spreading bacterial infections that kill tens of thousands of hospital patients each year simply by washing their hands or rubbing them with a foam disinfectant. Although health care providers know they should wash their hands, they do not always do this! In an effort to increase compliance, hospitals have started placing soap/gel dispensers in patients' rooms, making them more available and convenient. As a result, hospitals have attained 80% compliance, and the percentage of doctors and nurses that routinely wash their hands continues to increase.
  2. Many medical mistakes involve the incorrect administration of medicine. Often, these mistakes occur due to a doctor's illegible handwriting. By using computerized medication systems, where the doctor just has to choose the drug and the appropriate dosage from a computer menu, such mistakes can be avoided.
  3. Having a full electronic health record for each patient enables doctors to check new prescriptions against a patient’s history and allay concerns about allergies and drug interactions.
  4. Medication errors can also occur when incorrect doses of medicine are administered to patients. By storing medications in their diluted form rather than in potentially lethal full-strength forms, hospital emergency rooms can prevent overdose.
  5. Operating on the wrong site of a patient’s body is a surprisingly common error which can be avoided by making sure that the area needing surgery is clearly marked. Left/right mistakes occur most frequently, making up 44% of "wrong site" surgeries
  6. In addition to "wrong-site" surgeries, mistakes happen when surgery is performed on the wrong person! This can easily be avoided by protocol which requires that the patient identify himself/herself by name, social security number, and date of birth prior to the surgery, and prior to sedation. If your hospital does not have this protocol in place, you should request that you meet with the surgeon, nurse, and anesthetist before your surgery to reconfirm the site and side of the operation.
  7. Technologically advanced systems, such as scanning bar codes on lab specimens, can reduce or eliminate mix-ups; thereby preventing incorrect diagnosis and treatment.
  8. Patients can be more involved in the process to prevent medical errors. You can help by requesting a copy of your records; making sure that when a technician draws blood from you, he or she labels the blood tubes before drawing blood; telling your doctor what medicines you are taking; telling your doctor if you have allergies; asking your doctor to write your prescription legibly; and requesting copies of all of your test results.
  9. Mistakes increase when physicians are tired and under stress. Steps can be taken to regulate the number of hours medical residents work, and ensure that there are enough physicians available to work a given shift in a hospital.
  10. Patients should ask their doctor the following five questions about their medications:
  • What is the name of my medication?
  • What is it used for?
  • How will this drug interact with other medications I am taking?
  • Should I expect any side effects? And what should I do if I experience a side effect?
  • What should I do if I miss a dose either in the hospital or at home?

Sources:

  • NewsHour with Jim Leher Transcript - discussion on Medical Errors, 02/07/05
  • NewsHour with Jim Leher Transcript - discussion on Deadly Medicine, 11/30/99
  • Safety.com: Ten Ways Patients Can Help Their Doctors Avoid Medical Mistakes
  • American Society of Health-System Pharmacists: Patients Can Ask Five Simple Questions to Help Avoid Medication Errors
  • Center for Medical consumers - Hospital Patient Safety Campaign to Save 100,000 Lives
  • The Health Foundation Briefing - June 2006 - Patient Safety
  • Journal American Medical Association, July 26, 2000 and Rob Walters, WebMD

Jesse Reiter speaks as the incoming president of MAJ at their 61st Annual Banquet.

 

Jesse Reiter speaks as the incoming president of MAJ at their 61st Annual Banquet

 

Medical Care and Patient Rights in Perspective

At Reiter & Walsh, P.C., attorneys Rebecca Walsh and Jesse Reiter are dedicated to helping exclusively the victims of birth injuries and their families. Sadly, thousands of individuals die or suffer brain damage each year as a result of medical errors. However, instead of reforming the medical system to prevent these unnecessary injuries and deaths, physicians and insurance companies are lobbying to limit the rights of patients, preventing them from seeking full recovery through the legal system. To learn more about this, read the article written by Jesse Reiter, "State Doesn't Need Special-Interest Courts."

Even as the medical and insurance industries are attacking the legal system, they are publishing defense-oriented medical literature to use against patients in court. Mr. Reiter and Mrs. Walsh are at the forefront of the fight to protect patient rights and the truth about medical mistakes injuring patients.

Instead of limiting the rights of patients, physicians and insurance companies should focus on reforming the insurance industry and the health care system in an effort to protect patients. Such an action would not only benefit patients, but would also decrease doctors’ insurance premiums. In the meantime, as we wait for such changes to be made, our lawyers at Reiter & Walsh, P.C. are taking action to protect the rights of patients. We only handle cases involving birth injuries and pediatric malpractice and help the victims of these unnecessary injuries and their families to obtain the compensation to which they are entitled.

You can find more information on this subject in the MAJ fact sheets, Medical Malpractice Insurance and the situation in Michigan 2005 and Medical Malpractice Insurance and Civil Justice: Myth vs. Truth.

Annapolis Hospital Loses $6 Million Lawsuit

The Observer & Eccentric Newspapers/December 2002 Issue

Written By Doug Johnson (staff writer)

Oakwood Annapolis Hospital lost a $6.15 million medical malpractice lawsuit Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court.

A jury found the hospital "professionally negligence" during the birth of Kimberly Cole of Dearborn Heights. She survived the birth but has a milder case of cerebral palsy according to the family's attorney, Jesse Reiter, whose office is in Farmington Hills. She will need future surgeries, can use her limbs, but could have poor dexterity in her hands and may have a learning disability.

Oakwood spokeswoman Martha Shea said the corporation will appeal the verdict.

Annapolis, a 286-bed facility which serves many patients from Westland and Garden City, is in Wayne and is part of the Oakwood Healthcare System operating hospitals in southeast Michigan. They also operate offices and centers in Garden City and Westland as well, including the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Center on Central City Parkway.

"They (Oakwood) dug their heels in on this," Reiter said. "They took a very hard line. They should have said we have an error here."

Reiter said the young girl, who is now 6 years old, was subpoenaed by Oakwood's attorney and asked questions in Judge John Murphy's courtroom. "It was very painful. We didn't want to bring her in. It was a traumatic event for her."

The doctor in the case, Dr. John Armstead, was cleared of negligence by the trial. Oakwood's statement after the verdict was brief:

"Oakwood is gratified that no cause of action was found for the attending physician and is confident the nursing staff involved in the incident provided the highest quality care and medical treatment."

Reiter said the doctor was in the hospital at the time but was not called into the labor room by the nurse until about three hours before delivery when problems developed. The nurse claimed to have called the doctor but her claims could not be supported by the written case record, according to Reiter.

Reiter said the doctor would have offered a Caesarean section. "There was general agreement that a C-section performed sooner would have prevented brain injury," Reiter said.

Reiter said the child's life expectancy is 75 years. He fully expects the verdict to be reduced to about $2 million when finally settled.

Reiter and his partner, Rebecca Walsh, specialize in childbirth negligence cases. "We represent kids," Reiter said. They filed the suit in January 2001. The trial took about seven weeks and jury deliberation about four or five hours spread over a couple of different days.

The two attorneys have information about themselves on the Internet; search for American Baby and Child Law Centers.

-- This is a reprint of an article that appeared in a December 2002 issue of the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers, and is reprinted here with permission.

Articles & Events

 

Jesse Reiter as incoming President of MAJ mingles with guests at 61st annual MAJ banquet

 

 

American Baby Faire

MAJ Vice President Jesse Reiter presenting Ryan Berritt of Fraser with a brand new bike for receiving the Honorary 10,000th MAJ Helmet!

Michigan State Representative Steve Bieda (right) presented MAJ Vice President Jesse Reiter with a Special Tribute signed by Governor Granholm, Representative Bieda, and Senator Mickey Switalski, thanking MAJ for our successful Helmet Safety Campaign.

The Detroit News