Santa Rosa and Sacramento, California Personal Injury Blog

Negligence has been a common theme for the Orchard-Post Acute Care (previously known as Royal Court Health Care) nursing home in Whittier, California. From 2006 to 2011, this private, 162-bed "care" facility, which serves as both a temporary and long-term elder residential facility, has received 63 citations from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

Inexcusable Negligence

One of the most notorious incidents in the facility's history involved the death of a 78-year old Alzheimer's patient in 2008. At the time of his admission, he was recovering from a stroke, but he suffered severe injury when nursing home staff inserted his feeding tube incorrectly. According to the report by the CDPH, workers at the facility inserted the man's feeding tube into his peritoneal cavity - located outside of the stomach - instead of into his stomach.

Staff took the man to the emergency room after he complained of abdominal pain and doctors discovered that the lining of his abdomen was inflamed, causing difficulty breathing, and that he was in septic shock. Six days later, the man died of his injuries.

CDPH levied a $75,000 fine against Orchard-Post Acute Care Center for the incident.

Established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has worked to promote motor vehicle and highway safety. For decades, the agency has monitored car crash statistics and trends and announced that for 2010, traffic fatalities were at their lowest levels since 1949.

Reporting a 3 percent drop in traffic-related deaths between 2009 and 2010, the NHTSA believes that a number of safety initiatives may be directly responsible. However, experts are concerned that other factors may have contributed, and that the results are not consistent across the country.

Safety Initiatives

Many drivers are aware of various national programs to promote safer driving habits. For passenger vehicles, enforcement efforts such as "Click It or Ticket," as well as impaired and distracted driving campaigns, have educated the public about the perils and consequences of irresponsible driving.

For commercial vehicle operators and those in the trucking industry, the newly implemented Compliance Safety Accountability and increased law enforcement efforts have helped reduce crashes involving large trucks and buses.

States have enacted tougher driving laws that deal with the unanticipated risks of the nation's technology-driven social culture. Laws regarding texting and other mobile device usage have made a difference. States have also implemented tougher penalties for impaired driving along with graduated driving privilege standards for inexperienced drivers and improved renewal standards for the elderly.

While pregnancy is ordinarily a joyful time for expectant parents, it can also be stressful. Pregnant women need to be mindful of the growing list of prescription medications that have been deemed unsafe during pregnancy.

All drugs and chemicals ingested by the mother during pregnancy have the potential to cross the placenta - which provides oxygen and nutrients to the unborn baby from the mother - and some medications that are normally completely safe may cause harm to the unborn baby.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) uses a ranking system that helps doctors and pregnant patients decide which medications are safe. Medications are ranked into categories according to the known risk to unborn babies, and this list is growing longer.

The FDA recently strengthened its warning that the prescription medication topiramate, sold under the brand name Topamax, increases the risk of pregnant women having babies with cleft lips or cleft palates. Topamax is taken for migraines and seizures. 

Five to 10 surgical errors occur daily in the United States. Surgical complications or incidents of error can result in permanent injury, infection, increased medical costs and even death. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced its Surgical Safety Checklist, a patient safety tool that was designed to improve safety and reduce incidence of errors and complications. Since its introduction, scientific evidence has supported the use of checklists as a component of patient care. Earlier this year, an "Annals of Surgery" study supported the implementation of the SURgical PAtient Safety System (SURPASS) checklist.

In the April 2011 edition of the "Annals of Surgery," Dr. Eefje N. de Vries of the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam, and others, reviewed medical malpractice claim data from 294 insurance claims filed between 2004 and 2005. These researchers found that if the SURPASS checklist have been utilized, 40 percent of deaths and 29 percent of incidents leading to permanent damage could have been prevented.

In another study, Dr. de Vries also evaluated thousands of cases pre- and post-implementation of the checklist. Reviewing data from a number of hospitals from 2007 to 2009, the researchers also confirmed that post implementation, surgical complications dramatically declined.

In 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 5,474 Americans lost their lives on our nation's highways as a result of driving distractions. The federal agency indicated that 20 percent of car accidents resulting in injury involved reports of distracted driving and that this percentage represents an estimated 448,000 injuries.

While many states and the federal government has pushed legislation to curtail the problem, the Governor's Highway Safety Association (GHSA) recently announced study findings on this risky driving behavior. The first comprehensive overview for the nonprofit, representing the territorial and state safety offices, considered research from more than 350 scientific papers published between 2000 and 2011 on the issue of distracted driving.

The GHSA study came to many conclusions. While at least one driver was reported to have been distracted in 15 to 25 percent of crashes, the research revealed that the portion of distracted drivers may be higher than what has been reported. The group also found that few countermeasures are in place for distracted drivers on our nation's roads, that distracted driving interferes with driver alertness, and that there is not clear evidence that hands-free phone use is safer than hand-held phone use.

Cerebral palsy (CP), a non-progressive neurological condition, affects a person's ability to control muscles and mobility. The condition generally develops by age 2 or 3 and is caused by damage to the brain. Famous authors, activists, and actors are known to have had the condition which, while common, is not readily understood.

There are several types of cerebral palsy: spastic, athetoid or dyskinetic, and ataxic/hypotonic. Given the symptoms of each, a doctor may diagnose a person with one or a mix of types. For those with spastic CP - the most common type and affecting 70 to 80 percent of those diagnosed - muscle stiffness and exaggerated reflexes make movement difficult. The second-most commonly diagnosed form of CP, athetoid, will manifest as weak or tight muscle tone. A person with this form of CP will have normal intelligence, but have difficulties with walking, speech and, at times, controlling facial muscles. Ataxic CP is characterized by involuntary and uncontrolled movements. Lack of muscle controls makes voluntary movement hard. This least-commonly-diagnosed type of the condition affects depth perception and balance.

Causes of CP include problems with brain development in-utero, delivery complications, brain hemorrhages, asphyxiations, jaundice and head trauma. Between 10 to 20 percent of children acquire the condition after birth. This acquired CP can be the result of maternal or neonatal infections, such as bacterial meningitis. Damage in-utero can be linked to a number of maternal issues, including substance abuse, smoking and alcohol consumption.

In calculating the 10 most expensive and avoidable medical errors, a Colorado physician, Dr. Barry Bialek, looked at adding the cost of health care to the loss of income to the victim. In doing so, he came up with two categories of medical errors - errors leading to severe brain injury and errors leading to quadriplegia. All medical errors may be ripe for a medical malpractice suit against the at-fault party, however. This list only includes the most expensive medical errors based on the costs incurred by the medical malpractice victim.

Failure to Diagnose the Severity of a Brain Injury May Be a Medical Error

A mother's labor is monitored on a device that records the infant's heartbeat and rate of contractions. Failure to pay attention to the monitor or to recognize an infant in distress can lead to lack of oxygen and hypoxic-ischemic encepholopathy, resulting in severe brain injury to the infant.

A 19-year study released in February found that more than 9,500 infants and toddlers are injured by cribs, bassinets and playpens each year. It's likely that this number is actually quite higher because the study only evaluated the number of children treated for crib injuries in the emergency room, not children who go to their pediatrician or other urgent care doctors.

Based on the study's results, approximately 113 infants are killed by cribs each year. That amounts to 1.2 percent of all children who are injured in crib accidents. Another 4 percent are seriously injured and require hospitalization.