Lubbock County Texas Medical Malpractice Law Blog

Approximately one in every 5,500 surgeries involves a retained surgical instrument. In other words, the patient has a medical device or item accidentally left behind in them after the procedure. Approximately 70 percent of these surgical devices are sponges. While a sponge or a surgical screw doesn't have a large monetary value for a Texas hospital, the price of a medical mistake can be enormous. The costs per each case of a retained surgical device averages $600,000 in damages and legal fees. The annual costs across the nation are estimated to be $2.4 billion.

Because of the high cost, medical device equipment manufacturers are developing technology to help reduce the number of retained devices during surgery. One of these technologies involves embedding an identification barcode into each sponge. This helps track how many were used during the surgery and if any surgical devices were retained within the body cavity. Many hospitals and health care facilities already have policies where nurses and surgeons count the number of devices used before and after surgery. Unfortunately, human errors still occur with this method. In approximately 88 percent of the cases of surgical device retention, the devices were counted out loud.

Hereditary disorders with neurological effects can be medically devastating, but many times people with these disorders need to wait long periods before receiving an effective diagnosis. Two such illnesses include Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, or CMT, and familial amyloid polyneuropathy, or FAP. Both disorders often have an onset around the age of 20, and they can sometimes be confused for one another. A proper diagnosis is critical in order to provide the correct treatment that can significantly improve patients' quality of life.

FAP can appear in a patient's early 20s, but some cases begin later in life in a person's 30s or even 50s. A protein called amyloid deposits in abnormal locations in a person's body, causing nerves related to sensation and movement to deteriorate. These amyloid deposits can interfere with the nerves that regulate heart function as well as urinary and digestive systems. The disorder can lead to heart failure and even death. Research indicates that the genetically linked disorder is caused by a mutation in the TTR gene.

Texas readers may have heard that ovarian cancer is a "silent killer." This is because the disease can mimic other medical conditions and tends to be diagnosed in its later stages.

Over 250,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer worldwide each year, and around 140,000 succumb to the disease. However, by learning to recognize early warning signs, women could increase their chances of survival. According to medical experts, ovarian cancer symptoms are frequently mistaken for other less serious medical conditions. These symptoms include belly discomfort, bloating, feeling full quickly, nausea, indigestion, the frequent need to urinate, back pain and shortness of breath. Experts say women who experience these symptoms for over a week should contact their doctor and specifically ask about ovarian issues.

Errors among community pharmacists have increased by 64 percent between April 2018 and June 2018, according to a quarterly report from the National Pharmacy Association. Texas residents should know about this trend as they may be affected by it too. In the wake of the creation of the General Data Protection Regulation and changes to the data protection law, there have been more breaches of patient confidentiality and dispensing errors.

Eight percent of the errors recorded in the three-month period involved breaches of patient confidentiality. Other cases had to do with pharmacists giving medications to the wrong patient and mixing up the prescription slips and names and addresses on medication labels. Workload and time pressures were cited as a factor in 45 percent of the errors. This is contrasted with the previous quarter, where workplace pressures contributed to 4 percent of the incidents.