When you enter a hospital as a patient, whether to receive outpatient care, for planned inpatient care, or for emergency treatment, you should be able to expect that you will receive a reasonable quality of care and that you will not suffer harm because of medical negligence. Yet medical malpractice happens with frequency at hospitals, and with some hospitals, patients are more likely to experience medical errors than at others. According to a recent report in The Hill, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed new rules that could obscure certain patient safety data, particularly information that could show how some hospitals are less safe than others. What do you need to know about hospital ratings and their impact on the likelihood of a medical error?
Proposed Limitations on Hospital Performance Data
According to the article, “CMS proposed to suppress the data on 10 avoidable errors and accidents in hospitals that kill almost 25,000 people a year.” Limiting access to that data would also mean that patients and their families may not have access to the kind of information they would need to compare hospitals, and to make a decision about where to have a surgical procedure, for example, based on the hospital’s safety record.
Some of the injuries and complications at hospitals commonly include:
- Blood leakage after surgery;
- Kidney damage;
- Breathing failure;
- Sepsis;
- Split-open wounds;
- Accidental cuts;
- Bed sores;
- Lung collapses;
- Falls that result in hip fractures; and
- Blood clots.
Why is it so critical to ensure that this information is accessible to patients? According to the article, “the risk of suffering one of the excruciating events is not the same for all patients,” since “patients are at least twice as likely to encounter them if they use the worst hospital instead of the best.” Based on hospital alone, and the hospital’s safety record, a patient can be “four times more likely to die from a preventable blood clot and nine times more likely to have a surgical hemorrhage.” Without being able to access that information, a patient might not be able to make an informed decision about which hospital to use.
Suppressing Data Could Result in Preventable Hospital Deaths
The article in The Hill underscores that, if CMS does make the decision to suppress that data, simply preventing patients from accessing that information could result in an additional 68 deaths on average each day, in addition to nonfatal injuries due to hospital negligence.
It is important to know that hospitals, as well as health care providers within hospitals, can be liable for injuries that result from medical negligence. Indeed, a patient who suffers an injury at a hospital ultimately may be eligible to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against the specific doctor, nurse, or attendant whose negligence resulted in the injury, as against the hospital where the injury occurred.
Contact Our Santa Fe Medical Malpractice Attorneys
A Santa Fe medical malpractice lawyer can evaluate your case and provide you with more information about filing a medical negligence claim following a hospital error or injury. Contact Slate Stern Law for more information.