According to data from the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), in 2014, there was an increase of 4.4% in total malpractice payout amounts in the United States. It came close to the $4 billion mark at $3,891,743,050. 40% of the payout was for medical malpractice cases in outpatient incidents while 46% were for inpatient cases.
New York residents may have heard about a woman who died after getting a Brazilian butt lift. The 29-year-old mother from West Virginia was injured in a surgical procedure at Encore Plastic Surgery in Miami. After the woman’s surgery, her organs failed because her heart and lungs had become clogged with fat clots.
New York patients who are scheduled to have a surgery that uses computers to assist in the procedure may be interested to learn that in February, a patient’s heart surgery was stopped for five minutes when a computer began doing an automatic virus check. Although the patient, who was sedated at the time, was not harmed, the incident does highlight the vulnerability of such systems to errors that could potentially be life-threatening.
Thousands of people in the United States are affected by dental malpractice each year. According to the American Board of Legal Medicine, 13.1% of all claims for professional malpractice are filed against dentists. Other statistics show that in any one year, 1.6% of dentists will face a civil malpractice lawsuit. Some of the top negligence categories include:
In 2014, the total amount in medical malpractice payouts in the United States was $3,891,743,050. 40% of these payouts were in outpatient incidents while 46% were for inpatient cases. The total payment percentage by gender was 53% ($2,076,790,450) for female patients and 45% ($1,752,854,350) for male patients.
In 2013, the total payout in medical malpractice was $3,733,678,100, which was an increase of 4.7% from 2012. 38 states had more payout than they did in 2012.
According to studies, diagnostic errors occurred in approximately 5% of outpatients every year in the United States, meaning that roughly 12 million adults are victims of misdiagnosis. A small fraction of this 5% is made up of missed cancers, but it is found that “delayed cancer diagnosis” is one of the most harmful and costly types of diagnostic errors.
During the fiscal year 2008, 54 reported transfusion-related and potentially transfusion-related fatalities occurred in the United States, with subsequent reports of 66 in 2009 and 64 in 2010. Preventable medical errors rank third among the leading causes of death in the nation, claiming more than 400,000 lives each year. These errors cost the country tens of billions of dollars a year.
Robots have long been involved in the making of cars and electronics. They are also starting to learn how to make decisions that enable them to drive cars for us. As robots get smarter, there may be potential applications for artificial intelligence in the medical field. Specifically, it may be possible for a robot to perform surgery on its own in the future.
New York patients have the possibility of being harmed during the transition from a hospital to home care. The discharge process can be a chaotic time when health care providers are more likely to make mistakes. When a formerly hospitalized patient begins receiving treatment at home, the patient’s home health nurses, pharmacists and other health care providers could fail to correct mistakes that were made during the hospital discharge.
