Are you worried about potential infection risks during your hospital stay? Perhaps you should be. Hundreds of thousands of patients acquire an infection every year while in the hospital, unrelated to their illness or treatment. Of these infections, a full 40 percent are urinary tract infections, primarily resulting from improper catheter usage. Here’s what…
Recent studies show that medical malpractice is more likely to occur when communication between a patient and medical professionals breaks down as the result of a language barrier. Doctors must ensure that patients have a clear understanding of questions, instructions and diagnoses. Likewise, patients must be able to clearly explain their symptoms to doctors…
Patients who are injured in Utah hospitals today are most often the victims of slips and falls. When you visit the hospital, you expect treatment for a medical condition or injury. What you don’t expect is to fall and experience further injury. Yet, according to the National Institutes of Health, as many as 20…
Legal experts note a growing concern for medical malpractice instances that result from stressed-out, overworked medical personnel. A heavy workload and long hours can cause anyone to make mistakes, and when nurses make them, they can lead to devastating errors. Negligence and errors in medical treatment have traditionally been attributed mainly to doctors, but…
In an attempt to reduce hospital malpractice claims for medication errors, nearly every hospital in the country has implemented bar code scanning procedures. This technology is designed to add extra safeguards to drug administration. For the most part, these electronic tracking systems do improve patient safety; despite this, medication errors have not disappeared or…
New research shows that anesthesia errors can occur frequently during surgical procedures. Fortunately, most are minor and can be recognized and corrected during surgery. Patients usually never even know when these minor errors occur, as problems may only be revealed when a serious medical issue or death results from the negligence of the anesthesiologist….
