Medical Experts, Malpractice Lawyers Agree: Impose Punishment on Doctors, Nurses for Medical Errors
Every year 98,000 people die of preventable medical errors in US hospitals. In November 1999, the Institute of Medicine released its pathbreaking report “To Err is Human,” which revealed that preventable medical errors cause more deaths every year than automobile accidents, certain forms of cancer and AIDS. Ten years since the report was published, there hasn’t been much of a reduction in the number of deaths from these errors.
Failure to hold doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals accountable for errors that impact patient safety is the main reason Indiana medical malpractice lawyers come across so many injured patients every year. According to Peter Pronovost of John Hopkins and Robert Wachter of the University of California at San Francisco, punishments are effective at holding these professionals responsible, and for preventing repetition of these mistakes.
The two recommend sanctions for doctors, e.g., losing their privileges for a week for failure to follow safety standards for hand hygiene. They also suggest a loss of privileges for two weeks, for surgeons who don’t mark the surgical site properly to prevent operating on the wrong site. Currently, hospitals tend to play it safe, and are hesitant to blame any one individual physician for any of these errors. In sum, there is very little individual accountability, and typically, administrators look the other way when they come across, say, a doctor who fails to perform a "time-out" before operating to avoid surgical errors.
Every year 4,000 surgeries are performed at the wrong site. These are some of the most preventable surgical errors, yet they continue to frequently occur in our hospitals. Preventing medical errors doesn’t have to involve a heavy investment in time and resources. Following a simple checklist before operating, for instance, can ensure that the patient is operated on at the correct site. Likewise, there are relatively simple procedures that can be implemented for minimizing the risk of infection, and preventing surgical instruments, sponges and gauze from being left behind in the patient's body after surgery. We believe that healthcare professionals do commit these errors, especially on a repetitive basis, they be held accountable. As Indiana medical malpractice lawyers, we believe that such accountablility will help in reducing these preventable, life-threatening errors.
