Someone who goes to a hospital should be able to expect that they will be provided with a certain level of care. If a hospital fails to provide this level of care in any way, the hospital may be considered liable for harm to a person. Two common types of liability are hospital negligence and vicarious liability.Hospitals may be considered negligent for a variety of reasons. When hiring medical staff, it is up to the hospital to ensure that everyone from nurses to doctors are capable and will provide proper levels of care. Additionally, it is up to hospitals to ensure that these individuals are properly supervised and that there are sufficient numbers of people on staff to care for patients.Another form of liability is vicariously liable. If a patient [...]

New York residents might be surprised to learn that medication errors are often underreported by anesthesia providers. Recent findings may indicate a hesitancy to report the errors due to punitive actions, even though less than 10 percent of errors result in temporary harm to a patient. According to an anesthesiology educator at the University of Michigan Medical School, there are 44,000 to 98,000 annual patient fatalities caused by preventable medication errors.Researchers obtained data that was gathered from July 2006 to November 2015 by the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group and from quality assurance data that was self-reported by institutions. Each anesthetic record, electronic health record and error report was manually evaluated to determine resource utilization, adverse outcome and epidemiological information. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Preventions descriptions [...]

Multiple studies of breast cancer patients have identified a sharp increase in the number of younger patients electing to have both breasts removed even if cancer has only been found in one breast. The Midwest and East Coast have emerged as hot spots for the elective surgery that the the American Society of Breast Surgeons has published a statement against except for patients with additional risk factors. A breast surgeon from the NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center in New York said that she had seen a rise of 17 percent in contralateral prophylactic mastectomy.Another East Coast state has experienced a similar increase among cancer patients under 44. Between 2004 and 2006, 9.8 percent of younger women in one state chose to remove both breasts. Data collected between 2010 and 2012 showed [...]