A recent article on the blog Health Affairs made an important point about the current situation with the health care system when it comes to dealing with medical errors: transparency can significantly improve the outcome of cases in which medical errors occur, even...
Detroit Medical Malpractice Law Blog
Limitation on birth injury claims lifted by Court of Appeals
Birth injuries are devastating for parents, as anybody who has been through such an experience can tell you. The frustration can be particularly great in cases where birth injury is caused by medical malpractice. For those who have a strong enough case, there may be...
Patient engagement doesn’t negate physicians’ responsibility
Increasingly, health systems across the United States are moving toward an approach which aims to increase patients' involvement in their own care. The idea is that patients who take ownership of their treatment through deeper engagement can help improve their own...
Veterans and medical malpractice liability under the FTCA
Last time, we began looking at birth injury case recently appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Feres doctrine which is at stake in the case. As we noted, the Feres doctrine holds that active-duty military members are not able to sue the government for tort...
Active duty mother appeals for damages from government for birth injury
All of us depend on medical care at some point, and all of us expect that our providers will exercise an appropriate degree of care in treating us. When providers fail to do this, we know that we have the ability to seek compensation for our injuries, even if we...
When doctors fail to recommend cancer screening
We've been talking about cancer screening in our last couple posts--the risks, the benefits, and the potential for doctors to make the mistake of failing to recommend cancer screening. The latter issue is an important one, of course, because doctors have a huge...
Screening for cervical cancer: guidelines are only guidelines, P.2
In our last post, we spoke briefly about new guidelines released by the American College of Physicians that govern when health care providers should order screening for cervical cancer. The guidelines are an attempt to balance the risks associated with cancer...
Screening for cervical cancer: guidelines are only guidelines, P.1
Cervical cancer, like other forms of cancer, is best treated when physicians are able to identify it early on and begin appropriate treatment as soon as possible. The presence of cervical cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, is typically first determined...
Standards for antibiotic use would help patients hold medical professionals accountable
Antibiotics are obviously very useful in the world of medicine, helping keep infections at bay and allowing patients to recover more quickly. In some cases, they are necessary to save a patient’s life. As with other good things, though, there comes a point where...
Electronic records no guarantee against error
More and more businesses and industries, in an effort to cut costs and streamline operations have been turning to electronic record-keeping in recent years. In the field of health care, the use of electronic health records is becoming a widespread trend, with many in...