Electronic medical records (EMR), smartphones, texting, e-mail, remote access-all of these innovations have hit the healthcare sector with force over the past 10 years. For some physicians, EMRs enable them to work more quickly and keep better notes; for other physicians, it...
Two patients arrive in the ED with influenza during an outbreak. One is a 75-year-old man with several other chronic conditions and the other is a 45-year-old woman with three children. Who gets the last ventilator? Is it the woman because she is younger and has three children...
In a case that has spanned more than a decade, the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed a trial court's decision to declare certain contents of Beaufort Memorial Hospital's quality assurance committee (QAC) files discoverable and to order a new trial.
In last month's CPRLI, we reported that physicians who say "I'm sorry" to patients after an adverse medical event may risk having that apology used against them as an admission of guilt if a plaintiff brings a malpractice claim to trial. However, this anti-apology culture...
Hospitalists have a lot of information to absorb when they join a new program. As they begin to practice, they must match their colleagues' names to their faces, find their way around a new facility, and become familiar with a new set of performance expectations. But before a...
It seems physicians just can't win: If they report a hospital or another physician for quality of care issues, they risk losing their position with the hospital or getting sued by the colleague they reported; if they stay mum, they risk violating their state-mandated reporting...
