Oregon hospitals sometimes pay a heavy price when items like sponges and surgical screws are left inside a patient's body. In addition to possible malpractice awards and the associated premium hikes, medical facilities must often bear the costs of follow-up...
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Surgical Errors
Gag orders may prevent doctors from disclosing EHR errors
Human beings have an inherent urge to apologize when they make a mistake, but plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases often find that doctors can be adept at resisting these impulses. While Oregon law prevents apologies made by physicians being used to...
Woman sues after surgical error
Oregon patients may be appalled to see that in a lawsuit, a 60-year-old woman claims that surgeons at Yale-New Haven Medical Center botched her May 2015 surgery. She went in to have part of a cancerous rib removed, but surgeons operated on the wrong rib. The...
Fatality rates among infants who undergo heart surgery
Oregon residents may be shocked to learn that doctors performing complex surgical procedures on infants at some American hospitals may be lacking crucial skills and experience. A 2012 study of pediatric heart surgery in 73 hospitals found fatality rates ranging from...
Combined approach to patient safety works best
Each year, some people are injured because of medical errors made during surgery. Health care facilities continually look for ways to decrease the surgical error rate, and they have largely tried to do so by implementing one of two main approaches. In order to look at...
The importance of a safety culture in hospitals
Oregon residents may be interested in a recent study that indicates that the safety culture of a hospital or medical facility can have a significant impact on patient outcomes. Researchers looking at 12 safety culture factors in seven hospitals in Minnesota discovered...
Tips on how orthopedists can avoid lawsuits
Many orthopedists in Oregon and around the country are fully aware of the risks involved in their profession. Therefore, the latest findings by The Doctors Company regarding medical malpractice lawsuits may be of interest to them. According to the findings, 13 percent...
New handbook could help Oregon surgeons and their patients
It is estimated that 12 percent of patients will experience an adverse event in a hospital, with half of those occurring while in surgery. Adverse events include leaving an object in a patient, infections that could have been avoided or the death of a patient....
Installing cameras into operating rooms
Oregon residents may be interested in learning more about the push for implementing cameras into operating rooms to better document surgical procedures. Trailing only cancer and heart disease, medical errors is the third-leading cause of death in the country, killing...
Lack of sleep may not affect surgical outcome
As some Oregon residents know, sleep deprivation may affect job performance. A new study looks at whether a lack of sleep affects a surgeon's performance the next day. Since some health care advocates are calling for regulation requiring a surgeon to disclose to...