All Entries in the "legal and ethical issues" Category
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Physician with long history of misconduct finally caught by authorities
If you’re a reader of the Credentialing Resource Center Connection email newsletter, then you know about the case of a doctor with a checkered past who was finally caught by authorities. His case raises a question similar to the ones raised by the famous Kadlec and Swango cases: Does fear of disclosing too much information and risking a lawsuit cause medical staffs to disclose too little information, thus risking the safety of future patients?
Despite being fired from three hospitals, Michael Roy Sharpe, MD, was never disciplined by a state medical board. He worked in a series of hospitals in Tennessee and Alabama, until recently when accusations of having sex with a 15 year-old patient led him to voluntarily give up his medical license, according to an October 12 Tennessean.com article.
Now, he’s been officially charged with raping that patient, and five more young people have given statements about alleged misconduct, too, according to an October 23 Times-Gazette article.
Professional group expels physician who treated octuplet’s mother
Are celebrity practitioners held to different professional standards compared to non-celebrity practitioners, such as the ones on your medical staff? One professional group recently answered that question with a resounding no.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine expelled Michael Kamrava, MD, the physician who became famous for treating Nadya Suleman, the mother of octuplets, according to an October 20 Associated Press article. The society didn’t release many details about the practitioner’s expulsion, but did say that it wasn’t due to his work with any one patient.
Some physicians have trouble alerting others of potential mistakes
Physicians may not have an easy time speaking up when they see a medical mistake waiting to happen, says Mary J. Voutt-Goos RN, BSN, CCRN, director patient safety initiatives in the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.
I interviewed Mary for the November Medical Staff Briefing article “Joint Commission Alert puts leaders behind the wheel of patient safety: Steps for navigating the road ahead” and decided to ask our physician and MSP readers why they think speaking up is so difficult. Check out this article excerpt and let me know what you think:
Through surveys, Voutt-Goos learned that senior physicians also find it difficult to point out potential errors to their peers, although the exact reason isn’t clear. Voutt-Goos plans to conduct further focus groups to pinpoint why.
Regardless of why senior staff members have difficulty speaking up, the message is clear. “If you have difficulty speaking up to your colleagues in those situations, think about how much harder it must be for people lower in the hierarchy, like residents, nurses, technicians, and patients,” Voutt-Goos says.
Alert patients to HIPAA violations, says new regulation
All hospital workers—including MSPs and medical staff professionals—need to adhere to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines. The government recently updated these guidelines to require healthcare providers to notify patients if their health information was breached.
Medical staffs should update their polices as needed to reflect these changes.
According to a press release: “The regulations, developed by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), require health care providers and other HIPAA covered entities to promptly notify affected individuals of a breach, as well as the HHS Secretary and the media in cases where a breach affects more than 500 individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals will be reported to the HHS Secretary on an annual basis. The regulations also require business associates of covered entities to notify the covered entity of breaches at or by the business associate.”
Malpractice trial focuses on doctor with temporary privileges
The malpractice trial began yesterday for John Christian Gunn, MD whose patient Herberta “Bertie” Lang died after carotid artery surgery. Prosecutors gave the jury multiple reasons why Gunn should not have been granted temporary privileges to perform the surgery, including his questionable clinical judgments and multiple failed certification exams, according to an August 5 article in The Ledger Independent.
Lang’s family is accusing the hospital where Gunn worked and its parent company of corporate negligence. Meadowview Regional Medical Center in Maysville, KY granted Gunn temporary privileges from September 2005 to January 2006.
Nurses face felony charges after reporting doctor to the Texas Medical Board
Anne Mitchell, RN and Vicki Galle, RN, two nurses from West Texas, tried reporting a physician’s problem behavior through designated hospital channels. When their complaints fell on deaf ears, they took the next step and anonymously reported the physician to the Texas Medical Board.
If you’re a follower of Rita Schwab’s Supporting Safer Healthcare blog you already know what happened next – the medical board notified the physician of its investigation. In turn, the physician contacted the local sheriff to file a harassment report. The sheriff’s investigation led to third degree felony charges for the nurses.
The Texas Medical Board and the Texas Nurses Association both support the nurses’ actions, but that hasn’t stopped the sheriff’s office’s investigation.
Newspaper columnists have also come out in support of the nurses, saying the state’s whistleblower laws should offer more protection.
What do you think of the case? Do you think a similar situation could occur within your medical staff?
Wisconsin supreme court rules that physicians must alert patients to all treatment options
Wisconsin’s supreme court ruled that William Brusky, MD, failed to inform a patient of alternate diagnostic and treatment options, according to the Fond Du Lac Reporter, a newspaper in Fond Du Lac, WI. A trial jury initially rejected the negligence claim against Brusky, and an appeals court upheld that determination, but the state supreme overturned it last Friday.
The patient claims that Brusky’s incorrect diagnosis and failure to provide him with complete information regarding treatment options caused irreparable damage, including slurred speach and partial paralysis.
If disclosure of all treatment options is a requirement, then how should hospital quality departments track that? Should such disclosures be in writing? What are your thoughts?
Hospital seeks gag order over “negligent credentialing” ad
The law firm tried to place ads in local newspapers asking patients of the accused doctor to contact the firm. The ads explain that the doctor is involved in a case of alleged negligent credentialing, according to a July 22 Northwest Arkansas Times article.
Despite the use of the word alleged, the hospital where the doctor practiced felt the ads were too strongly worded and could mislead potential jurors; it’s seeking a gag order to stop the ads. The law firm claims the ad falls within the limits of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct.
Medversant sues Morrisey Associates over credentialing patent
Medversant Technologies LLC is taking Morrisey Associates to court over what they see as a patent infringement of their credentialing software.
Medversant unveiled its patented product earlier this year with a press release explaining: “The ‘Electronic Credentials Verification and Management System’ (U.S. Patent 7,529,682) is a foundational patent for the company and provides for a system for storing, continually verifying, and retrieving credentials records in a global network environment.”
The marketing around Morrisey’s MSO for the Web (MSOW) product seems a little too similar for comfort to Medversant.
“It is evident from their advertising that they are marketing for sale a product that is consistent with our AutoVerify [which uses the patented product] process, which is utilized by health plans, hospitals, state Medicaid programs and other healthcare organizations to continuously credential the providers who provide healthcare services,” Philip Collias, JD, general counsel for Medversant said in a Cloud Computing Journal article.
The United States District Court for the Central District of California will hear the case. Keep reading the Credentialing Resource Center blog for more updates about the case and its impact for medical staff services departments.