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  • Legal Review & Commentary: Failure to timely diagnose tuberculosis leads to death, confidential settlement

    News: A man exhibiting tuberculosis-like symptoms went to a clinic for treatment. Tests were ordered, including an analysis by the state health department, after which it was determined that the man was suffering from a disease related to tuberculosis called Mycobacterium avium. Several months later, the man presented to the emergency department with ear pain and an upper respiratory infection.ï
  • Legal Review & Commentary: Unresolved gallstones cause bile leakage, death

    News: An obese, middle-aged woman suffering from pancreatitis and gallstones underwent gallbladder removal surgery at a hospital. Over the next two weeks, she continued to experience abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. Although doctors suspected that the woman might have gallstones floating freely in her bile duct, they were unable to perform the necessary procedures to confirm that suspicion due to the patient's size. The woman subsequently died.
  • Impaired doctors fear impact on careers

    Addicted physicians must overcome significant fears about the impact on their careers and personal lives before they are willing to ask for help, so risk managers can help by assuring them the process will be about rehabilitation and not punishment, according to two experts in the field.
  • Patient brochure must be worded carefully

    Nearly every health care facility has a patient safety brochure these days, and they almost always come out of some department other than risk management. So do you really know what is in your organization's patient safety brochure?
  • Lawsuit says hospital 'dumped' homeless man

    Civil rights attorneys are suing Hollywood (CA) Presbyterian Medical Center in connection with the "dumping" of a paraplegic man on Skid Row in 2006 that sparked nationwide outrage after media reports of the man falling out of a van and then crawling in the gutter.
  • VA official apologizes for substandard care

    Nineteen deaths over the past two years at a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in southern Illinois may be linked to substandard care, according to a an investigation that prompted an impassioned apology from a VA official.
  • Legal Review & Commentary: Failure to timely diagnose tuberculosis leads to death, confidential settlement

    News: A man exhibiting tuberculosis-like symptoms went to a clinic for treatment. Tests were ordered, including an analysis by the state health department, after which it was determined that the man was suffering from a disease related to tuberculosis called Mycobacterium avium. Several months later, the man presented to the emergency department with ear pain and an upper respiratory infection. He died two weeks later.
  • Call centers have key role to play in pandemic planning

    Call centers will be the first line of defense for the hospitals they serve if a pandemic — such as an outbreak of avian flu — should hit the United States, say a variety of health care professionals working to prepare for such an eventuality.
  • Script 'introducing' DPs aids in 'Message' delivery

    Two new auditing processes and a script for "introducing" discharge planners to their patients are the latest innovations at Stevens Hospital in Edmunds, WA, part of its response to the revised "Important Message from Medicare" (IM).
  • Director creates script for use in bed control

    At California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles "we never want [staff] to say, 'We do not have any beds,'" says Elizabeth Oliver, director for access care for the facility, which is part of Catholic Healthcare West (CHW).