Hospitals Set New Restrictions On Who Can Perform Risky Surgeries

We're often criticized by doctors, hospital administrators and insurance executives for shining a spotlight on incompetent health care professionals and the injuries and deaths they cause. We shrug off the criticism because preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. killing more than 440,000 thousand Americans every year and injuring millions more.

The medical/insurance industries do a good job of keeping these facts under wraps--that's why less than 15% of malpractice incidents result in a lawsuit which means that millions of people across the country who are devastated by medical mistakes never receive the compensation they deserve.

Every now and then, however, the media focuses on the problem. This week National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" ran a story detailing the harm caused when inexperienced doctors perform what should be relatively routine surgical procedures. Here's an excerpt from the story:

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Knee replacements aren't usually associated with death. The national death rate from the procedure is about one in a thousand. But patients are three times more likely to die if they have a knee replaced at a hospital that doesn't regularly perform the surgery. Now three leading medical institutions are putting restrictions on surgeons. Patient advocates hope other hospitals will follow. But surgeons themselves are skeptical, as New Hampshire Public Radio's Jack Rodolico reports.

JACK RODOLICO, BYLINE: So how bad can things get? Dr. John Birkmeyer at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in New Hampshire says a patient came to him after bariatric surgery at a small hospital, a hospital that didn't perform that operation often. Before sewing up this patient, the surgeon had messed up the plumbing. This patient's gut flowed in a circle.

JOHN BIRKMEYER: Well, the food would come in through the esophagus, go down through a loop of intestine, and rather than continuing downstream, the food would come backwards, up through another other piece of intestine and back up into the bypass part of the stomach.

RODOLICO: And consider the stats for pancreatectomies. One-third of Medicare patients who have their pancreas removed do so at a hospital that performs that surgery only once or twice each year. Yet, most of those patients would only have to drive an extra 30 minutes to get to a high-volume hospital, and most would be willing to do so. A recent analysis of Medicare data by U.S. News & World Report found low-volume hospitals put patients at risk in a big way. Birkmeyer says that analysis indicates up to 11,000 patients died at these facilities from 2010 to 2012.

BIRKMEYER: Surgeons would never disclose the fact that those risks are function of not just the procedure itself but who's doing it.

That's right, thousands of people die because doctors and hospital administrators put profits before patients. If you've been injured or a family member has been killed as a result of medical error, call the local law firm that's won millions for victims: Betras, Kopp & Harshman. We'll arrange a no-cost consultation to evaluate your case, provide you with our best advice on how you should proceed and then help you fight for justice and the settlement you deserve.

You may listen to the entire NPR report here: http://www.npr.org/…/hospitals-set-new-restrictions-on-who-…