Hospitals are required by federal law to maintain an audit trail for electronic medical records. The audit trail (which is discoverable) tracks when a medical record was accessed and when additions or alterations were made to the record (by whom and when).
At a banquet in Spain, Christopher Columbus was seated at a place of honor. If he had not discovered the New World, a jealous noble asked him, wouldn’t somebody else have done so?
“It’s the start that stops most people.” This old saying is never more true than when a new Certified Legal Nurse Consultant writes her first few medical-related case reports for attorney-clients. I’ve even had intelligent, seasoned CLNC consultants share how they look for every kind of reason to procrastinate when writing a report, including my favorite, “That toilet really needs cleaning right now.”
Standards of care are the foundation for your analysis in every medical malpractice case. The three primary categories of standards are all vital to developing a comprehensive medical malpractice case. Use the following list to ensure you research and incorporate all relevant standards of care into your next medical malpractice opinion.
Hospitals have long been penalized for high rates of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) and as Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know, HAIs can have serious, long-term consequences for patients. Hospital-acquired infections have been estimated to cause up to $30 billion in annual medical costs.
How many times have you gotten all geared up to analyze a medical case for an attorney-client only to find that the information is incomplete and records are missing? What’s a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant to do?
Imagine a fatal motor vehicle accident (MVA). A car is traveling at 93 miles per hour. The driver is unconscious or otherwise unresponsive. It crashes into another car killing one passenger and injuring two others. The driver is brought up on criminal charges of second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and various counts of criminal assault.
Plaintiff attorneys are driven by the damages in a case, but that doesn’t mean they go after all of the available damages. For example, an attorney representing a plaintiff in a vegetative state from facility #1 would probably not pursue pressure ulcer damages caused by facility #2.
Every medical-related case you analyze as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant holds a truth of the facts – i.e., exactly what transpired. Yet we weren’t there, so there is something standing between that truth and the outcome of the case whether it settles or goes to trial. That something is perception. Perception is not truth, it is interpretation.
Sometimes cases are so horrific that it’s in the defendant’s best interest to admit liability and either settle or take the case to trial for damages only. As an example, I consulted on an obstetrical case where the newborn was declared dead, the parents were informed and the newborn was taken down to the morgue. Then a healthcare provider in the morgue recognized that the newborn was still alive. The physician interrupted the distraught parents’ grieving to inform them that their “dead” baby was actually alive. Their ecstasy was short-lived – because valuable time was lost, the baby was severely brain-injured. Needless to say, that case settled.
*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
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