A recent report from ECRI Institute (formerly known as Emergency Care Research Institute), a prominent nonprofit organization that works to improve patient care, names infusion pump errors as the top health care technology hazard for 2017. The report should raise...
Year: 2016
Why are heart disease and heart attack symptoms in women being ignored?
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CSC) approximately a quarter of all deaths that occur in the United States each year, over 600,000 can be traced back to heart disease. While many think of heart disease as a "man's disease" it is also...
Breast cancer is still commonly misdiagnosed
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - the time of year when products suddenly turn pink. The objective is to raise awareness of breast cancer and encourage women to get preventive breast cancer screenings. It is also a reminder to younger women to conduct...
Preventable Causes of Medical Malpractice
I recently attended the annual meeting of the American College of Legal Medicine. A featured speaker was Kenneth Shine, M.D., from the University of Texas, who was instrumental in the work of the Institute of Medicine and the continuing work to make medical care...
“Performing the Wrong Procedure”
A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association had an article with the title of this blog. The article contained a bottom line as to why these errors occur and we decided to pass that information on as it is a recurring observation in so many of...
Ovarian Cancer Awareness month
The Ovarian Cancer National Alliance has dedicated September as National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Ovarian cancer is the deadliness of gynecological cancers, and early detection is relatively rare. Only 20% of women diagnosed catch the disease in the early...
Kayak Accident
For many years now, I have been kayaking on the waterways of the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. I have served as president of the Hudson River Watertrail Association (HRWA.org) and in a week I will be joining with other guides to escort some 100 kayakers and...
Prescription drug errors: Who is responsible?
Problems with prescription drugs are one of the most common sources of medical errors. Mislabeled medications, incorrect dosages and negative drug interactions can cause serious health problems up to and including death. However, if the unthinkable does happen and you...
Summer surgeries put you at higher risk for injury
There is definitely an irony in life when you go into surgery to relieve a problem, only to find that the surgeons created a worse problem for you. This happens more often than the medical community would like to admit. The legal system recognizes this failure in the...
Watch out for these signs of nursing home abuse and neglect
When you place your loved ones in a care facility, you expect the staff to treat them with respect and meet all of their physical and health care needs. Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen. As the elderly population continues to grow more families turn to...