Six workers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, have been fired after accessing Kim Kardashian‘s medical records.  Hospital officials said the ongoing internal inquiry surrounding the breach occurred during Kardashian’s week-long stay at the facility for the birth of her baby last month.

This is a repeat of Britney Spears’ hospital stay at UCLA Medical Center in March 2008.  Thirteen workers were sacked after accessing Spears’ medical records.

Don’t these ghouls know that medical records are legal documents and every patient world-wide has the right to have them kept private.

14 July 2013

A 68-YEAR-OLD woman died from a severe allergic reaction to a drug containing sulphur prescribed to her by a doctor, despite 14 separate notes alerting hospital staff of her condition.

She was admitted for a cataract operation, but within hours was dying after being given a 250mg dose of Diamox.  The pill, containing sulphonamides, was administered despite the patient’s medical file containing at least 14 documents in which her allergy to sulphur-based medications was recorded.

A red alert bracelet indicating a patient had allergies was also worn on the patient’s wrist.  Within 20 minutes of being given the medication, the patient complained of shortness of breath. Within two hours, she was dead of anaphylaxis.

WHY DON’T CLINICIANS OBSERVE THESE PATIENT ALERTS?

HOSPITAL MALPRACTICE HISTORY

Previous concerns over the quality of care at the hospital, about 100km east of Perth, has already led to three doctors being suspended after five patients died following discharge.

In March, WA’s Department of Health said the three doctors would be referred to the Medical Board of Australia following an investigation by the state’s chief medical officer Gary Geelhoed.

His report pinpointed a lack of medical leadership in the Emergency Department, poor communication and uncertain roles in and between medical disciplines as major issues at the hospital.

DEADLY INCOMPETENCE TIME AFTER TIME

1. The hospital first came under scrutiny after the 2010 death of 16-year-old boy who was sent home with Panadol after the hospital failed to diagnose H1N1 influenza.
2. Then more worrying cases came to light, including the death of 53-year-old woman.  She was sent home with medication for a headache after collapsing in July 2011 but collapsed again within 30 hours and died in Perth two days later.
3. A 23-year-old nurse died after being sent home on 29 December 2012 with painkillers for a severe headache.
4. A 12-day-old baby died in 2010 of heart failure after the hospital sent him home twice.
5. A 69-year-old woman visited the hospital last June with a broken arm, was treated and then returned with vomiting and was found to have acute renal failure.  She was treated but sent home, only to return a week later, fall into a coma and die two weeks later.

All of those cases are also being investigated by the WA Coroner.  

A HOSPITAL TO AVOID FOR YOUR LIFE’S SAKE!

A small group of so-called “frequent flyer” doctors account for half of all patient complaints, new Australian data shows.

It shows a small percent of doctors account for a large percent of complaints which indicates that patients are not running off to the lawyers or complaints commissions/boards at the drop of a hat.  A new study shows that most patients and doctors are reasonable people and the ones who are complaining have legitimate complaints about the few bad apples.  Doctors need to stop being so paranoid that patients are ‘out to get them’.

A SMALL group of so-called ‘frequent flyer’ doctors account for half of all patient complaints, new Australian data shows.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne analysed 18,000 complaints made to 7 state and territory health service commissions and found that 15% of the 11,000 doctors in the study accounted for 49% of the complaints, corresponding to only 3% of all practising doctors.

The number of prior complaints a doctor experienced strongly predicted their chance of future complaints, with the risk of recurrent complaints nearly double in those with two prior complaints, and 30 times higher in those with 10 or more prior complaints.

Professor Ron Paterson from the University of Auckland said the findings were an “albatross around the neck of the Australian medico-legal system”.

“No one with a passing familiarity with the world of patient complaints will be surprised by the fact there is a group of ‘frequent flyer doctors’ who attract a disproportionate share of complaints,” he wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.

The authors criticised medico-legal institutions for remaining on the sidelines as quality and safety movements had risen over the last 15 years.

“They remain essentially reactive enterprises, with workloads that focus on dealing with the fallout from care that has gone wrong,” they wrote.

Study leader and author Professor David Studdert said the world-first study could form the basis of new strategies for improving quality and safety in healthcare.

“Finding a way to predict, early on, which clinicians are going to experience lots of medico-legal problems in the future is a kind of holy grail in our field,” he said.

“These findings are exciting because they open the way for agencies like health complaints commissions and medical boards to play more of a prevention role, rather than just picking up the pieces after things go wrong.”

“It can’t happen soon enough” says a spokesperson from Medical Error Action Group.

11 April 2013

BREASTSCREEN SA failed to detect 72 cancers between 2010 and 2012, due to reduced recall rates, a system-wide review into digital mammography screening has found.

At last a politician means what he says.  Queensland Minister for Health Lawrence Springborg has sacked the remaining members of the Queensland Medical Board and an interim board is now in place.  The remaining members of the QMB who had not resigned last month were sacked 2 weeks ago.

Criticism outlined in the Forrester Report, tabled in the Queensland Parliament, accused the board of leniency towards doctors and delays in processing complaints related to the whole board.

A majority of the members resigned last month after Minister Springborg subsequently asked all members to show why their positions were still tenable.

The Medical Board of Australia announced today that interim arrangements have been put in place to manage the work of the board.

A Queensland Medical Interim Notifications Group has been appointed to deal with notifications about practitioners’ conduct and performance and registrations will be managed by board and committee members from NSW.

Minister Springborg’s office said a replacement board for Queensland would be appointed by the minister and was expected to be in place in about two months.

23 May 2013

Lawyers for the French breast implant firm PIP have used the final day of a fraud trial to deny knowingly making faulty implants. The incident sparked health scare affecting thousands of women around the world.

10 April 2013

A neurosurgeon has been accused of operating on the wrong side of a woman’s brain, leaving her unable to speak or take care of herself.

A 53-year-old woman from St Ann, Missouri, filed a lawsuit last month against Dr Armond LEVY and SSM Health Care-St Louis, accusing them of negligence and carelessness.

The woman patient was due to have a left-sided craniotomy bypass but was instead given a right-sided one, according to her lawsuit.

2 May 2013

Nearly half a million Australians are falling ill every year in the hospitals they turn to for help.

Adverse reactions to medicines, misadventures during surgery, haemorrhages, blood clots and faulty devices such as stents and joint replacements are adding to the misery of already sick patients.

The number of cases rose by 40,000 in the 12 months to 30 June 2012.

An official tally of mishaps by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) found in 2011-2012 almost 340,000 Australians suffered an adverse event in a public hospital.  A further 150,000 had a “health mishap” in a private hospital (those were some of the ones that couldn’t be covered up).

The largest number of medical blunders were abnormal reactions or complications arising from a hospital procedure, with 286,000 patients suffering such problems.

The second biggest group, 151,000, was associated with side effects from drugs.

Another 110,000 had a complication with a medical device inserted during their treatment and 35,000 developed an infection after a procedure.

As MEAG said “hospitals are dangerous places for sick people”.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s a public or private hospital.  The message is BEWARE.

11 May 2013