Personal Injury Law

Working To Reverse The Increase of Deadly Medical Errors

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

Newsweek recently compiled an extended story that analyzes the growing problem of mistakes made by medical professionals that ultimately lead to severe harm to the unfortunate patients in their care.

The news magazine refers to a previous study that explained how almost 100,000 patients in American hospitals die each year from preventable medical errors. Experts who have analyzed that study since have admitted that the figures are likely on the low end, with the true number of killed patients much higher. Unfortunately, the problem is only growing with reports of wrong diagnoses, hospital infections, medication errors, and other mistakes higher than ever.

Steps have recently been taken recently with an eye toward improving patient safety. They include new Medicare and Medicaid regulations that disallow reimbursement for injuries that occur at hospitals which should have been prevented, including bed sores and blood transfusion errors. In addition, twenty eight states now require some form of reporting of hospital acquired infection rates?allowing consumers more information when deciding what facilities are best able to minimize preventable health problems. Those hospitals that continue to show increasing infection rates will ultimately have their Medicaid payments decreased as well.

The online mobilization of injured patients is being credited with helping to spur the changes and improvements in medical care. The communicative reach of the internet is allowing many more patients to share their stories of harmful hospital experiences, raising awareness of the issue that was previously little known. In the same way, we hope that this blog space acts as a means by which stories about medical mistakes are shared in an effort to build momentum around drives to improve medical care.

Our Chicago medical malpractice lawyers at Levin & Perconti are committed to working each day to eliminate medical mistakes. We have assisted victims of these hospitals problems for decades, ensuring that the legal rights of the injured and their families are respected and honored.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on October 09, 2010 (boomark / email).