June 28th, 2011 by Berci in News, True Stories
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I’ve recently come across a really controversial story about a cancer patient who blogged and complained about his hospital treatment and has been threatened with legal action by an NHS trust.
Daniel Sencier was worried about delays at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary and had surgery at another hospital. He complained to North Cumbria University Hospital Trust and it came up with an action plan to improve care.
But Mr Sencier, 59, of Penrith, then received a letter threatening legal action. The trust declined to comment.
Mr Sencier, a photography student, had expected an apology but then received a letter saying the trust would consider legal action if his blog contained “unsubstantiated criticism”.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
March 29th, 2011 by admin in Health Policy, News, Opinion
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More and more patients these days are seeing their physician pull out an iPhone or iPad to look up drug dosing information, review lab and radiology data, or help teach them more about their medical condition. And as developers, and the increasing number of physician-developers, continue to find more creative ways to bring medical resources to the point of care, we can certainly expect smartphone platforms and medical apps to become pervasive at the bedside. However, just as healthcare providers and patients are noticing this trend, there are number of others who are paying attention as well – for WebMD, one of the largest companies in this industry, it is the lawyers who may be watching that are worrisome.
As they put it in their annual statement to the SEC,
If our content, or content we obtain from third parties, contains inaccuracies, it is possible that consumers, employees, health plan members or others may sue us for various causes of action.
We’ve talked in the past about potential liability issues for healthcare providers using medical apps and the developers who produce them, as well as similar issues related to electronic health records. The fact that WebMD found the issue significant enough to report it to the SEC and their investors clearly indicates the issue is still unresolved and the remainder of their statement adds some further interesting perspective. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
February 23rd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Opinion
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Should hospitals send twitter “updates” on patients undergoing complicated catheter ablation procedures using “pre-approved” scripted story lines?
In a far corner of the operating room Thursday, a Web producer and a cardiac expert with St. Vincent’s huddled over a laptop. They chronicled the procedure largely from a script that Oza had signed off on a day earlier.
The procedure uses radio frequencies to scar parts of the heart. The scars block signals sent from a quartet of veins in the left atrium, signals that cause the heart to go haywire. The entire procedure is done using a catheter inserted into a patient’s groin while the patient is anesthetized. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 16th, 2010 by DavidHarlow in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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An often overlooked tool in health care providers’ struggle with the malpractice crisis is the medical apology. Two thirds of the states provide some form of protection for the medical apology (i.e., a simple apology is not admissible in court as an admission of culpability), and settlements reached post-apology are almost invariably lower than they would be otherwise. (In the current environment, articles on medical apologies are popping up everywhere … even in the NY Times business section.)
It is important to note that an effective apology policy does not stop with the simple apology — I’m sorry that this happened to you — but must include a commitment to conduct a root cause analysis, to communicate the results to the patient and/or patient’s family, to implement systems improvements based on the results of the root cause analysis, and to offer a specific apology once the analysis is complete, and an offer of monetary compensation if the provider or its systems were at fault. Of course, it’s easier to describe these steps than to actually carry them out. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
January 4th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News
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It’s sad that cardiologists have had to sue as their last resort to save their practices:
“Heart specialists on Monday filed suit against Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in an effort to stave off steep Medicare fee cuts for routine office-based procedures such as nuclear stress tests and echocardiograms.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, charges that the government’s planned cutbacks will deal a major blow to medical care in the USA, forcing thousands of cardiologists to shutter their offices, sell diagnostic equipment and work for hospitals, which charge more for the same procedures.
Perhaps other professional organizations will be forthcoming with similar suits as private doctors and their patients pay dearly for the reform efforts underway. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
