Chicago Personal Injury Law Blog

Concerns about the quality of care in hospitals are common among Chicago residents. For instance, it is often difficult to teach doctors to follow basic procedures when treating patients, such as using checklists or washing their hands. Failure to follow such procedures can be a form of medical malpractice.

It is not surprising that there are also issues with measuring the quality of treatment. New research shows techniques that hospitals are using to game the system and make their medical outcome statistics look better than they actually are.

For example, a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that pneumonia rates dropped 27 percent over a six-year period. Researchers dug further, however, and published a new report showing that the rates dropped only because hospitals changed their diagnostic coding system to classify pneumonia as a secondary diagnosis.

One possible reason for this change is that diagnostic codes enable hospitals to bill patients at higher rates. Critics argue that this presents a conflict of interest, because medical professionals who study and propose changes to billing and coding systems stand to personally gain from changes.

Hospitals, like any other for-profit business, are managed with the principle goal of maximizing profit. Maximizing compensation through billing practices presents a shortcut to achieving this goal.

Problems with assault within nursing facilities are more common than most people prefer to believe.

Nursing home abuse or neglect can take many forms, of course. One is failing to properly monitor residents so that they fall - and break bones or suffer even worse damage.

Another is failing to administer needed medication properly, sometimes because of prescription errors. These errors can do grievous harm or even bring about premature death.

In terms of the sheer terror it causes nursing home residents, however, assault is in a class by itself. When a nursing home allows assaults on residents to occur - either by staff members or by other residents - it needs to be held accountable.

But in a current Chicago case, state regulators are finding that accountability can be difficult to achieve.

Two years ago, allegations surfaced of a disturbing pattern of patient-on-patient violence at the Rainbow Beach Care Center, a 200-bed facility on the South Side. It offers housing and treatment for indigent adults with mental health and disability issues.

The facility's problem with assault came to light through police reports and inspections by the state health department. Chicago police statistics indicate that there have been seven allegations involving criminal sexual assault or sexual abuse since 2008. That is more than for any other Chicago nursing home.

We live in a very distractible society. So many portable electronic gadgets are available, and the temptation to text or go online while behind the wheel is strong.

To cut through the information overload, it's good to set aside a certain period of time to focus on the problem. Accordingly, this month, Chicago car accident lawyers and other safety advocates are recognizing national Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

The tag line for this year's events is "One Text or Call Could Wreck it All." The U.S. Department of Transportation is spearheading the awareness efforts, in collaboration with partners in all fifty states.

Many of these efforts involve education. Some people still mistakenly believe that it's okay to use a cellphone while driving. But ten states now ban not only texting while driving, but also cellphone use.

Even if someone is using his or her smartphone for GPS navigation purposes, it's still taking that person's eyes off the road and dividing their attention. And that divided attention isn't safe.