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What Type of Case Dominates Medical Malpractice Payouts?

Most People Think of Surgical Errors or Birth Injuries, But Think Again.

 

Medical malpractice cases seem to dominate the news and provide for titillating reading but what types of cases are the most frequent, most severe, and most costly of all medical mistakes among paid medical malpractice claims? According to a new study in the Journal BMJ Quality & Safety, diagnostic errors dominate medical malpractice payouts. The study, was conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, and was based on data from 350,706 paid medical malpractice claims reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal repository of payments made on behalf of clinicians for court judgments or settlements. The database is maintained by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

The study found that diagnostic errors accounted for 28.6% of paid medical malpractice claims from 1986 to 2010, which was more than other causes of injury related to treatment (27.2%), surgery (24.2%), obstetrics (6.5%), medication (5.3%), anesthesia (3%) as well as other causes of action. The study further found that diagnostic errors were more likely to result in death (40.9%) than other types of mistakes (23.9%). Permanent disabilities were just as likely a consequence as death, suggesting that the "public-health impact of diagnostic errors could be substantially greater than previously estimated based on autopsy data that considers only lethal errors."

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 The most frequent diagnostic errors were failure to diagnose (54.2%), followed by a delay in diagnosis (19.9%), and a improper diagnosis (9.9%). The remaining 16% of those errors were unclassified. One physician, associated with the study, commented "we don't need more testing, but smarter testing." One example is that emergency room physicians often subject patients complaining of dizziness to CT scans to rule out a stroke, even though dizziness is a symptom of an ischemic stroke, which frequently does not show up on such scans. It was suggested that the better test would be to perform a bedside eye movement assessment.

Although performing a proper diagnoses is not a simple undertaking and it is impossible to make the right call 100% of the time, Dr. Newman-Toker associated with the study indicated that unattainable perfection is no excuse for inaction. "We can't say were doing the best we can because were not doing the best we can". It was suggested that clinicians focus their quality improvement energies on diagnostic errors that can lead to the greatest patient harm. The clinical situations posing the highest risks are vascular events, infections, and cancer.

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Hopefully, with improved patient care, the incidences of medical malpractice can be reduced which will create a win/win situation for all.

 

Richard P. Hastings is a Connecticut personal injury lawyer at Hastings, Cohan & Walsh, LLP, with offices throughout the state.  A graduate of Fordham Law School, he has been named a New England Super Lawyer and is the author of the books: "The Crash Course on Child Injury Claims"; "The Crash Course on Personal Injury Claims in Connecticut" and "The Crash Course on Motorcycle Accidents."  He has also co-authored the best selling book "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing- What Your Insurance Company Doesn't Want You to Know and Won't Tell You Until It's Too Late!" He can be reached at 1(888)CTLAW-00 or by visiting www.hcwlaw.com.
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