If your doctor is on probation due to medical negligence or for committing a serious surgical error, how will you know? According to a recent report from KQED News and California Healthline, proposed legislation “would have required doctors and other medical [professionals] to notify their patients if they were on probation for serious infractions.” However, as the report explains, the California Senate rejected the legislation, meaning that there will be no law in place—at least not in the very near future—that will require physicians to inform their patients about their severe mistakes.

Details of the Proposed Legislation and its Limited Application As the report explains, the proposed legislation did not aim to require all doctors and other healthcare professionals who have been cited for any and all forms of medical negligence to tell their patients. The bill only “would have applied to a tiny pool of practitioners—those disciplined for serious offenses such as gross negligence, sexual misconduct, substance abuse, or a felony conviction related to patient care.”

In short, few healthcare providers would have fallen under the purview of such a law. However, for those doctors who would have been included in the proposed legislation, had the bill passed, they would have had to “notify their patients in a one-page, ‘easy to read’ notice that explained why they had been put on probation.” The California Medical Association opposed the bill, contending that such a requirement would have the effect of a suspension because patients likely would not continue to see a doctor who had provided such a notice.

Yet supporters of the bill voiced frustration with the California Senate, arguing that it is difficult for patients to be able to acquire information about their physicians’ histories when it comes to citations and medical negligence. While information about serious offenses and disciplinary actions is available online, it can be difficult for patients to acquire before it is too late.

Obtaining Information About Your Doctor’s Disciplinary Record Under California law, the Business & Professions Code §§ 803.1 and 2027 specify the type of information that the Medical Board of California can provide to the public concerning a doctor’s medical errors or bad acts. As the FAQ from the Medical Board of California makes clear, California residents do not have access to a list of complaints or allegations made against any given physician licensed in the state. Complaints do not become public information unless they result in a disciplinary action against the doctor.

In our state, when a healthcare provider has been disciplined, you can locate information about the disciplinary action through the BreEZe Online License Search function. What type of information is provided here? You can learn about anything from a public reprimand—which is a less severe disciplinary action—to probation. And if a physician is placed on probation, that physician’s license will clarify when she or has completed the probationary period.

If you or someone you love sustained an injury because of your doctor’s medical negligence, you may be able to file a claim for compensation. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer in San Diego can discuss your case with you today. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more information.

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(photo courtesy of Kenn W. Kiser)

Can the increasing use of electronic records at hospitals and other medical facilities result in more medical mistakes? According to a recent article from Medscape, electronic health records in emergency departments could be leading to preventable medical errors. In most circumstances, we might assume that the use of electronic health records would help healthcare facilities to avoid the kinds of mistakes that result from human error. However, as the article suggests, human error can still factor into electronic health databases—and in fact might be more of an issue than before the age of electronic health records.

Wrong Files, Wrong Clicks, and Misinformation It is all too easy, as the article intimates, for a mouse to slip and for an emergency room physician to click on the wrong file or to enter a dosage number that is much larger than it is supposed to be. At the same time, other employees tasked with entering information such as symptoms into a patient’s file might misread a name or enter that information into the wrong section, resulting in a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. To be sure, “these are easy mistakes to make,” and “as ER doctors and nurses grapple with the transition to digitized record systems, they seem to happen more frequently,” according to the article.

The digital age has brought about a new trend in patient safety errors that simply did not exist when hospitals and other healthcare facilities relied upon paper, handwritten records. While electronic health records (EHRs), which have been pushed at various facilities through financial incentives from the government, likely will be more efficient than paper records in the long run, it is a difficult switch in the short term.

Higher Error Rates for EHRs Older electronic record programs have been in use at hospitals for a little while now, but EHRs are different. They are intended to be compatible with one another (despite a hospital’s location in the country, for example) such that patients can receive quality care even if they require treatment at a substitute hospital. However, because of the way EHRs have been created, they are not compatible with the electronic record programs that currently exist at most hospitals. And as a result, experts expect more medical errors in the early days of using EHRs.

According to Jesse Pines, the director of the Office for Clinical Practice Innovation at the George Washington University, the use of EHRs have resulted in numerous medical errors, including but not limited to:

• Ordering the wrong medications;
• 
  Missing important patient information (due to confusing displays);
• 
  Entering incorrect patient care instructions; and
• 
  Missing specific patient instructions.

Yet as Pines explains, these mistakes might not solely be the result of human error. Pines drafted a report indicating that “a growing body of evidence suggests that many errors may be the result of poor design rather than user errors.” Now, it is important for healthcare workers to get used to these new systems so that mistakes do not happen.

In the meantime, medical errors resulting from EHRs may result in medical malpractice cases. If you or someone you love sustained an injury because of a medical mistake, you may be able to seek compensation. An experienced San Diego medical malpractice lawyer can assist you today. Contact the Walton Law Firm for more details.

See Related Blog Posts: What Should You Know About Medical Errors? Preventable Pediatric Medical Errors

Does the failure to maintain a patient’s privacy ever rise to the level of medical negligence? According to a recent article from NPR, disclosing a patient’s health history under certain circumstances may in fact be grounds for a medical malpractice claim. What do you need to know about your privacy rights as a patient? When might a physician’s violation of those privacy rights lead to a successful lawsuit?

Breaches of Patient Safety May Amount to Medical Malpractice Depending on the state you live in, courts may be more or less willing to consider a breach of privacy in relation to a medical negligence claim. Although California has not yet provided such a ruling, that fact alone does not mean that patients in our state should feel as though they do not have certain rights to privacy that patients in other states maintain.

For example, just this past summer, a patient filed a claim against UCLA and the Regents of the University of California due to a breach of privacy, according to the NPR report. What harm had the patient suffered? She argued that “a romantic rival accessed and shared her medical records.” The NPR article noted that “the rival was a temporary worker in the hospital of a private practice physician affiliated with UCLA’s Santa Monica Office,” and the “doctor acknowledged improperly sharing his password.” The jury in Los Angeles did not find in favor of the patient, but she had already settled out of court with the physician. Subsequent claims in California could ultimately turn out differently, with a jury awarding damages to an injured plaintiff.

Unlike the California court decision, courts in Indiana have been particularly “receptive to such arguments” about patient privacy. Patient advocates contend that more states should behave like Indiana, emphasizing to patients that their privacy rights are important and that healthcare providers will be held liable if they breach those privacy rights.

According to one advocate, “privacy protections should be the same regardless of what state you’re in.” Indeed, he underscored, “there is something wrong with an employer providing the means, providing the access, and providing the tools by which an employee can commit this crime and then being able to hold up their hands and say, ‘It’s not our fault.’ Should federal laws come into play? Or would a larger look to federal protections undercut state laws concerning medical malpractice?

Large-Scale Medical History Breaches Some patient safety advocates argue that medical data breaches are nationwide issues that can involves hundreds—or even thousands—of patients. The federal Office for Civil Rights has looked into large-scale breaches of medical data already. Under current law, healthcare providers are required to notify the Office for Civil Rights “within 60 days of breaches affecting at least 500 people.” In addition, healthcare providers are required to “share details with the media and contact those potentially affected.” Thus far, the Office for Civil Rights has looked into cases even when there has been no clear “demonstrable real-world harm” to the patient. In the last six year, the office has gotten information concerning approximately 1,400 large-scale data breaches.

What happens when smaller patient data breaches impact individual plaintiffs? It may be possible for patients who have suffered breaches of confidentiality to file medical malpractice claims. You should speak with an experienced San Diego medical negligence lawyer about your case. Contact the Walton Law Firm today to learn more about how we can help.

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