Personal Injury and Medical Malpractice Blog

According to the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners, a doctor is facing fines for falsifying patient records after he woke up from a nap. The patient who the Rutherford, New Jersey doctor treated for at least five years was taken to a local hospital after being found unresponsive at his home. The doctor requested that the patient be transferred to the Hackensack UMC, which occurred around 10 pm, so that he could monitor him. The doctor slept for several hours due to improperly setting his alarm while his patient suffered a fatality during that time. Once the doctor woke up, he recorded false findings regarding his patient’s medical history, physical assessment, and fatality. Within two months, his privileges at the » Read More

Forty years ago, approximately 50 percent of patients who passed away in a hospital were autopsied. Today that number has shrunk to about five percent. Although an autopsy used to be a standard procedure whenever there were questions about a person’s death, that is not always the case anymore. There may be fewer autopsies today because there is the fear that any questionable findings could result in a lawsuit, and survivors do not often pursue them because it is a sad and uncomfortable subject to discuss. However, if medical malpractice has occurred, you must be able to prove what led to the patient’s passing. Although an autopsy may not be enough by itself, when coupled with testimony from medical experts, » Read More

On Monday, Camden, New Jersey officials and two Congressmen met to discuss a new tool in fighting opioid abuse. The new tool is simply sharing prescription drug monitoring information between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Two Congressmen, New Jersey Democratic Congressman, Donald Norcross, and Pennsylvania Republican Congressman, Patrick Meehan, met to discuss the importance in sharing the information. They are also working on gathering other regional states to participate in the sharing program in order to help prevent opioid abuse, and find suitable treatment for addicts. Hospitals in both states would share their databases to ensure that patients are not receiving multiple prescriptions in different states. Currently, the prescription drug information sharing program will begin in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and » Read More

Pitocin is a brand name for injectable oxytocin, a synthetic hormone that is used to start or hasten childbirth. Misuse of this drug can cause a risk to the baby’s health. Pitocin is unpredictable, which means that it can disrupt the rhythm of contractions and relaxations, often resulting in inadequate delivery of oxygen to the fetus during labor. This can put the baby at risk for birth asphyxia, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, as well as other oxygen-deprivation-related injuries. Birth injuries associated with Pitocin may include: Fetal distress Hypertension Bradycardia Neonatal seizures Low Apgar scores Retinal hemorrhages Fetal head trauma Much more In fact, Pitocin is the drug most commonly associated with preventable adverse effects in childbirth. It is recommended for use » Read More

South Carolina is the first state to implement the World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist—and the results could not be more encouraging. Results from a five-year study conducted by the South Carolina Hospital Association, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Ariadne Labs were recently published in the Annals of Surgery. The study found that implementation of the Safety Checklist reduced post-surgical deaths by a shocking 22 percent. The checklist was initially compiled in 2008 by Ariadne Labs Executive Director Atul Gawande. The goal was to reduce hospital acquired surgical infections and superbugs. Some of the WHO recommendations include the following instructions: People preparing for surgery should shower or bathe beforehand Hair should be removed from operative sites » Read More

Most people are unaware that preventable medical errors kill as many as 1,000 people every day in the U.S. That staggering number is only a statistic until it affects someone you love. That is why it is so important to choose the safest hospital you can find when you are in need of medical care. According to the Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit healthcare watchdog organization, hospitals in New Jersey are doing much better this year than last. The group raised the state’s ranking from 22nd to 15th in the nation for protecting patients from harm. That means you are less likely to develop an hospital acquired nfection, receive the wrong medication, or fall inside a New Jersey hospital. Hospitals are » Read More