Med Mal News

Showing Up for Work Not Always Admirable

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that medical personnel in hospitals are reporting for work when ill, endangering the health of patients and co-workers and possibly impairing their abilities to perform at their best. Anupam B. Jena, et al. Presenteeism Among Resident Physicians, JAMA. 2010;304(11):1166-a-1168. Fifty-eight percent of the 744 second- and third-year residents surveyed reported that in the previous year they had gone to work at least once while sick. Some hospitals had significantly higher rates of this so-called “presenteeism,” indicating to the researchers that, at some institutions, hospital culture may pressure health care providers to avoid absenteeism, to the detriment of quality of care.

The California Medical Association (CMA) has filed a lawsuit against Blue Shield of California seeking to halt its publication of physician ratings in its Blue Shield's Blue Ribbon Recognition Program ' ratings CMA claims are based on faulty information that is presented in a misleading way. The program awards certain physicians its highest “blue ribbon” rating, placing a blue ribbon next to their listings in the Blue Shield publication. In its lawsuit, CMA notes that not all physicians are even eligible to receive such a blue ribbon, the absence of which next to a doctor's name might indicate to patients and potential patients that the doctor's work is somehow substandard. Additionally, CMA says Blue Shield's system fails to evaluate patient outcomes or check to see if another physician performed a procedure on a patient, among other complaints. “As physicians, our number one priority is our patients,” said CMA President Brennan Cassidy, M.D., in a statement. “We believe by using and publicizing what is a faulty assessment of physicians, without adequate disclosures of the limitations in the ratings, Blue Shield is both misleading the public and potentially damaging the reputations of thousands of doctors.”

California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the State's legislature to enact new rules for home health care workers that will prevent violent felons from holding those jobs. His plea came in a letter addressed to the State's Senate and Assembly, written in response to revelations made in a September Los Angeles Times expos'. E. Halper, Los Angeles Times, 9/24/10. The article revealed that California's government-run In-Home Supportive Services ' which provides in-home health care and household help for eligible disabled and aged citizens ' has convicted felons among its employees and applicants. Under current law, as interpreted by a recent court decision, only those convicted of certain kinds of fraud, child abuse or elder abuse are prohibited from serving as home care providers. That means violent criminals are eligible to work in the system, where they can enter the homes of vulnerable ill and disabled program participants. Recipients of these services cannot be told of the situation, as privacy laws prevent the State from warning them about their caregivers' criminal records. The Governor's Sept. 24 letter warns that, “[c]hoosing to protect these felons over the vulnerable beneficiaries in this program is akin to releasing violent felons from prison and sending them straight into a nursing home on a work-release program. I am hard pressed to imagine that any member of the Legislature would allow a convicted sex offender to take care of their own grandmother in a nursing home. But if the Legislature continues to resist making changes in the law, the Legislature is essentially saying it is okay for that to occur to someone else's grandmother in their own home.”

A group of New Hampshire attorneys, led by former New Hampshire Congressman and State Supreme Court justice Chuck Davis, have filed suit against the State for failing to properly fund the civil court system. The case, Baxter v. State of New Hampshire, filed Sept. 28 in Merrimack County Superior Court, claims the $6 million budget cuts the state recently imposed on its court system have created unconstitutionally long waits for civil litigants' cases to be heard. The petition offers four cases as examples of the hardship civil litigants are now facing, including one that involves a medical malpractice case dating back to September 2006. The petitioners seek a return of $4 million to the state court fund, claiming the budget reductions for the period that runs through June 2011 violate the New Hampshire Constitution, which guarantees prompt civil jury trials to citizens.

Showing Up for Work Not Always Admirable

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that medical personnel in hospitals are reporting for work when ill, endangering the health of patients and co-workers and possibly impairing their abilities to perform at their best. Anupam B. Jena, et al. Presenteeism Among Resident Physicians, JAMA. 2010;304(11):1166-a-1168. Fifty-eight percent of the 744 second- and third-year residents surveyed reported that in the previous year they had gone to work at least once while sick. Some hospitals had significantly higher rates of this so-called “presenteeism,” indicating to the researchers that, at some institutions, hospital culture may pressure health care providers to avoid absenteeism, to the detriment of quality of care.

The California Medical Association (CMA) has filed a lawsuit against Blue Shield of California seeking to halt its publication of physician ratings in its Blue Shield's Blue Ribbon Recognition Program ' ratings CMA claims are based on faulty information that is presented in a misleading way. The program awards certain physicians its highest “blue ribbon” rating, placing a blue ribbon next to their listings in the Blue Shield publication. In its lawsuit, CMA notes that not all physicians are even eligible to receive such a blue ribbon, the absence of which next to a doctor's name might indicate to patients and potential patients that the doctor's work is somehow substandard. Additionally, CMA says Blue Shield's system fails to evaluate patient outcomes or check to see if another physician performed a procedure on a patient, among other complaints. “As physicians, our number one priority is our patients,” said CMA President Brennan Cassidy, M.D., in a statement. “We believe by using and publicizing what is a faulty assessment of physicians, without adequate disclosures of the limitations in the ratings, Blue Shield is both misleading the public and potentially damaging the reputations of thousands of doctors.”

California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the State's legislature to enact new rules for home health care workers that will prevent violent felons from holding those jobs. His plea came in a letter addressed to the State's Senate and Assembly, written in response to revelations made in a September Los Angeles Times expos'. E. Halper, Los Angeles Times, 9/24/10. The article revealed that California's government-run In-Home Supportive Services ' which provides in-home health care and household help for eligible disabled and aged citizens ' has convicted felons among its employees and applicants. Under current law, as interpreted by a recent court decision, only those convicted of certain kinds of fraud, child abuse or elder abuse are prohibited from serving as home care providers. That means violent criminals are eligible to work in the system, where they can enter the homes of vulnerable ill and disabled program participants. Recipients of these services cannot be told of the situation, as privacy laws prevent the State from warning them about their caregivers' criminal records. The Governor's Sept. 24 letter warns that, “[c]hoosing to protect these felons over the vulnerable beneficiaries in this program is akin to releasing violent felons from prison and sending them straight into a nursing home on a work-release program. I am hard pressed to imagine that any member of the Legislature would allow a convicted sex offender to take care of their own grandmother in a nursing home. But if the Legislature continues to resist making changes in the law, the Legislature is essentially saying it is okay for that to occur to someone else's grandmother in their own home.”

A group of New Hampshire attorneys, led by former New Hampshire Congressman and State Supreme Court justice Chuck Davis, have filed suit against the State for failing to properly fund the civil court system. The case, Baxter v. State of New Hampshire, filed Sept. 28 in Merrimack County Superior Court, claims the $6 million budget cuts the state recently imposed on its court system have created unconstitutionally long waits for civil litigants' cases to be heard. The petition offers four cases as examples of the hardship civil litigants are now facing, including one that involves a medical malpractice case dating back to September 2006. The petitioners seek a return of $4 million to the state court fund, claiming the budget reductions for the period that runs through June 2011 violate the New Hampshire Constitution, which guarantees prompt civil jury trials to citizens.