Expertise Archives - Page 14 of 15 - Legal Nurse Business

Analyzing liability for a healthcare fall

You’re a legal nurse consultant asked to be involved in analyzing liability for a healthcare fall. When injurious falls occur in a healthcare facility, a lawsuit may result. Here are some of the common deviations from the standard of care that may lead to a fall. The plaintiff’s expert witness may allege any of these…

3 Faces of Bullying in Health Care

Bullying in health care shows up in many forms. Here are some examples. Bullying by a patient An angry young male is admitted to the hospital after he was shot by police during a drug deal. He becomes demanding and treats the nurses like they are his personal servants. One of the nurses finds a…

How the Legal Nurse Consultant Can Assist an Attorney with a Fall Case

The legal nurse consultant (LNC) assists the attorney by providing services to identify the liability, causation and damages associated with a fall case. These are some of the services. LNC Services for a Fall Case A chronology of medical care The LNC goes through the records of the plaintiff from before and after the fall.…

Winning the Global Fight Against AIDs

Are we winning the global fight against AIDS? I remember first reading about AIDS in the early 1980s. Then AIDs was diagnosed in fewer than 20 patients in the U.S. Millions of Africans were infected, but there was no way to detect this. Dr. Michel Kazatchkine was one of the physicians involved in the early…

How to get information about a motor vehicle accident

Have you ever wondered how you can get hidden sources of information about a motor vehicle accident, particularly when there is a question of when it happened? Here’s a proven fact: you can and should work with the attorney to determine timing of the event. Secret sources of information about a motor vehicle accident 1.…

Certification or Certificate – What initials would you put after your name?

Should you get a certification or a certificate as a legal nurse consultant? They are different! One of my colleagues Carol Alvin prepared this guest post. There are many different types of educations available for nurses who are interested in pursuing a career as a Legal Nurse Consultant. There are online courses, a university based…

Spinal cord injury after a fall

A spinal cord injury can result from falls; thus a full assessment is critical after a fall to determine if there are injuries to the spinal cord. These injuries can be devastating. Common types of spinal cord injury The spine consists of 33 vertebrae: 7 cervical, 12 thoracic, 5 lumbar, 5 sacral and 4 coccygeal.…

Wound treatment 101

Legal nurse consultants will encounter many medical records that detail types of wound treatment. Hyperbaric oxygenation, negative pressure wound therapy, surgical closure, debridement, and topical dressings are all treatment options for wounds. A combination of these modalities may be utilized to treat a wound. Virtually all wound treatment regimens incorporate the utilization of a topical…

Why doctors should not be testifying to nursing standards of care

Nurses are the right people to testify about nursing standards of care, right? It was not always so self-evident. We can thank the Sullivan case for reinforcing the validity of this approach. The Illinois case called Sullivan V. Edward Hospital, 806 NE 645 (Ill. 2004) involved a man who climbed over side rails and was…

Medical malpractice: It only takes a moment

Accidents can happen in a moment, forever altering your life. Medical malpractice only takes a moment. One night last month, my husband and I were driving separately down a dark road to our house. I was ahead of him. I heard a screech of brakes, and a bang and crash of metal hitting metal. I…