Connecticut Personal Injury Blog - Medical Malpractice

Connecticut Places Hartford Hospital On Probation

James Sabatini — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:38:45 GMT

Hartford Hospital, the state's second-largest facility in terms of licensed beds, is on probation for a year after complaints arose about its emergency and operating rooms. State officials discovered 28 complaints over a two-year period based on patient surveys. The Department of Health found serious issues during the course of its investigation. There were a number of patient care issues on a system-wide basis ranging from psychiatric care, to emergency department care, to psychiatric issues, to infection control issues. The hospital must take corrective actions or the probation will be extended. Hartford Hopsital has issued an apology to patients and their families where patient care was inadequate.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Emergency Room Patients Waiting Longer

James Sabatini — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:05:23 GMT

Patients seeking urgent care in U.S. emergency rooms are waiting longer than in the 1990s, especially people with heart attacks, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. The longer waits affect insureds and uninsureds equally. They found a quarter of heart attack victims waited 50 minutes or more before seeing a doctor in 2004. Waits for all types of emergency department visits became 36 percent longer between 1997 and 2004, the team at Harvard Medical School reported. The longer waits are being attributed to the fact that emergency room patients are not money makers for the hospitals, thus emergency rooms are being shut down or scaled down.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Vermont Hospitals Will Not Seek Payment For Certain Medical Errors

James Sabatini — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:38:08 GMT

Vermont hospitals recently adopted a policy not to seek payment from patients or insurance companies if certain rare errors are made that result in serious harm. The 14 Vermont hospitals will follow a uniform system that officials said will make the hospitals more accountable. The policy will cover eight, serious medical errors including surgery performed on a wrong body part or on the wrong patient, incorrect surgery, artificial insemination with the wrong donor or injury caused by a medication error. Vermont is he third state to adopt the voluntary policy. It is unclear what if any effect this new policy may have on the rate of errors committed by hospitals. It will certainly have a positive effect on uninsured patients who suffered injuries due to a medical error. These patients will no longer have the added misery of paying medical bills resulting from certain serious medical errors.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

James Sabatini — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:06:27 GMT

In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims allege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced medicine there for 30 years.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

More Lawsuits Filed Against St. Francis Hospital For Failing To Protect Patients From Sexual Abuse By Dr. Reardon

James Sabatini — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 13:06:27 GMT

In the latest lawsuit filed against St. Francis Hospital, the victims alllege that the doctor accused of sexually abusing his child patients used a gun to threaten the children and raped some of the victims. The lawsuits accuse St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford of failing to protect them from Dr. George Reardon. He was a chief of endocrinology at the hospital and practiced medicine there for 30 years.

For more information on this subject, please refer to our section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Connecticut Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations

James Sabatini — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:24:42 GMT

Connecticut law requires that a medical malpractice lawsuit be initiated within two years from the date when the injury is first sustained or discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered. The law also requires that it be initiated within three years from the date of the act or omission complained of (CGS Â§ 52-584). (The courts typically refer to the two year period as the statute of limitation and the three year limit as the statute of repose). Thus, a person who believes he has been injured because of medical malpractice must initiate the lawsuit within three years of the act of malpractice even if he does not discover and could not have reasonably discovered the injury and its link to the alleged malpractice until more than three years have passed.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Medical Malpractice and Negligent Care.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by James Sabatini

Florida Reform Did Not Drop Medical Malpractice Rates

Shannon Weidemann — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:41:00 GMT

Laws were passed in Florida in 2003 to reform the medical malpractice insurance industry. Rates rose 98 percent in some specialization during the time period between 1998 and 2002. Doctors were hoping the reform would lower their medical malpractice rates. A new study has shown that claims have gone down but rates have only decreased slightly. It is hoped that rates will continue to decrease even though insurance companies have posted recored profits.

The largest insurer, Jacksonville-based First Professionals Insurance Co. (NASDAQ: FPIC), asked the state insurance office for an 11.7 percent decrease on top of the 8.5 percent decrease it passed on last year. Its rates would be just below 2003 levels, said President Bob White.
And premiums will continue falling for the next two years, then stabilize as more years of lower claim data are factored into the rate formula, White said.

The new laws capped rewards for pain and suffering at $500,000 in order to help reduce costs. Studies have shown that medical malpractice claims have dropped around the country in the same time period.

If you would like to learn more about medical malpractice, please visit InjuryBoard's Medical Malpractice information page.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Defibrillator Leads Recalled by Medtronic

Shannon Weidemann — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:45:34 GMT

Medtronic has issued a product recall for Sprint Fidelis Defibrillator leads because of possible fractures in the lines. The defibrillator leads have been on the market since 2004 and the FDA did not require human testing before gaining approval. The model was close enough to a previous one to not warrent it. Medtronic did perform short-term testing on humans before seeking FDA approval though.

Before approving the Sprint Fidelis models, the FDA reviewed results from animal tests and extensive engineering "bench" studies, including 400 million repetitions of a bending motion designed to answer questions about the devices' strength, said Megan Moynahan, chief of the FDA branch that oversees defibrillator leads. Because the fracturing issue is "extraordinarily rare," a human clinical trial was unlikely to find it, she said.
There are 235,000 of the recalled items still being used in people. Five people may have died from using the device. The leads are connected to a defibrillator implanted in a person's chest.
If you would lilke to learn more about defective medical devices, please visit InjuryBoard's Medical Devices and Implants information page.
Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Salem Man Awarded $210K for Medical Malpractice

Shannon Weidemann — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:53:41 GMT

A Salem man had surgery on his gall bladder in August 1999. He was in pain following the surgery and visited with two doctors. Both of the doctors failed to diagnose a bile leak and he needed to have emergency surgery to fix the problem. He sued for medical malpractice and the jury awarded him and his wife $210,000.

Kevin Cummings said he first went to Dr. Lakshmanan about pain following the surgery and was referred to Dr. Jha who also didn't diagnose the problem during one visit to his office. After the surgery, Cummings indicated he was off work for several months at Tri-County Electric and developed post traumatic stress disorder. The two doctor's maintained that bile leaks sometime develop after surgery which is noone's fault. Both claimed to have adequately reviewed Cummings case and say the biloma may have developed after they saw him.

The Marion County jury deliberated for several hours after hearing testimony for 8 days. The surgery took place at a hospital in Kansas City.

If you would like to learn more about medical malpractice, please visit InjuryBoard's Medical Malpractice information page.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann

Heart Device by Thoratec Recalled

Shannon Weidemann — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:28:49 GMT

A heart assistance device manufactured by Thoratec has been recalled because the device may function incorrectly. The defective medical device has been used at 87 hospitals in the United States and around the world since 2004. The device is surgically implanted in patients and it may become bent.

Thoratec notified the hospitals of potential problem in an Oct. 19 recall notification letter, asking them to evaluate the drive line adjacent to the pump housing to ensure that it is not subject to extreme flexing or bending at acute angles on all patients using the unit.
The announcement comes a day after Thoratec said it might recall approximately 5,800 anticoagulation monitors in response to a Food and Drug Administration warning letter expressing concern about the devices.

The monitor may also be recalled due to incorrect test results being relayed. The heart assistance device has been linked to five injuries and one death.

If you would like to learn more about defective medical devices, please visit InjuryBoard's Medical Devices & Implants information page.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Shannon Weidemann