Law Firm Resources & News

The news this winter has followed a familiar path regarding the frequency and effects of flu outbreaks in nursing homes. I previously blogged on this topic. Norovirus, flu, group a strep, whatever the infectious process… don’t we owe our elderly and infirm a safe environment in which to live? In 2007, more and more nursing…

An examination of child-related medical negligence settlements and judgments finds that failure to diagnose is the most common reason for payments. The study, published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, pulled statistics from the National Practitioner Data Bank, a mandatory electronic depository which documents such payments. My conclusion – pediatricians…

This case comes from Oregon but could be from anywhere. The patient, a 54 year old woman, underwent a routine mammogram at a health clinic. The radiologist who interpreted the study reported it as normal. However, two years later the patient was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer which had metastasized to her bones and…

For that matter don’t get sick on the weekends or at other dangerous times! What are we talking about? Well, a recently published study found that heart-attack patients admitted to a hospital on Saturday or Sunday are at a greater risk of dying than those same patients when admitted between Monday and Friday. The report,…

Let’s face it – most residents in assisted living facilities and nursing homes are incapable of moving quickly. They may be confined to a bed…a wheel chair…or a meri-walker. This reality can have devastating results when a fire breaks out! Virginia law requires fire suppression and alarm systems in its nursing homes. Although it is…

This blog often discusses situations where health care providers do something wrong or fail to do something which should have been done. The issue of whether smokers should get regular lung scans may not fall in either of the situations mentioned in my first sentence. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has concluded…

1. Do you want answers to these types of questions?2. What is elder abuse?3. What are the warning signs of elder abuse?4. What is self-neglect and what are the signs?5. What makes an older person vulnerable to abuse?6. Who are the abusers of older people?7. Are there criminal penalties for the abusers?8. How many people…

A congressional report has found that 5,283 — over 30 percent — of the nursing homes in the U.S. were cited for an abuse violation that had to cause harm between January 1999 and January 2001. Over 2,500 of the violations were serious enough to cause actual harm or to place residents in immediate jeopardy…

Some 2 million patients get a hospital-acquired infection (it’s called a nosocomial infection) every year and 90,000 of those patients die. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 19,000 infection cases occurred in 2005 (up from 11,600 in 2004) out of 1.6 million admissions to 168 hospitals, according to a report issued in November by the state’s…

The change in the beginning and end of daylight saving time (DST) may adversely affect medical equipment which use date and time information for diagnosis or treatment, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The new DST began 3 weeks earlier and will end one week later this year. Medical equipment that uses,…

A record breaking $217 million dollar lawsuit last year against a group of Emergency Room Physicians for failing to diagnose a stroke. Over $100,000,000 of that was punitive, meaning, the jury meant to punish the physicians for their negligence. Imagine being the physician – and learning (or knowing) that the plaintiff had offerred to settle…

Well here we go again! Two years ago a Roanoke, Virginia assisted living facility had an outbreak of the group a strep bacterial infection. Several residents died and one lost a leg to a complication from the infection known as necrotizing fasciitis, also known as the “flesh-eating bacteria.” How do I know? My firm represented…