Medical Records
Legal Nurse Consultants: What I Learned from Handling Volumes of Cases (Part One)
Volumes of legal nurse consulting cases can radically change your business. I did not know what was ahead of me when I received a call from a defense attorney who approached me to assist his firm and client defend a series of claims involving an orthopedic device. He was handling dozens of cases which had…
Read MoreLegal Nurse Consultants: 4 Medical Record Analysis Barriers
What are the 4 most common medical record analysis barriers you will encounter as a legal nurse consultant? Disorganized medical records The records come into your possession in no particular order. They were scanned and saved to a disk before they were organized, which requires you to sift through them to rearrange pages. You may…
Read MoreTop 10 Hints for Medical Records Management
Legal nurse consultants are often involved in medical records management. Here are some tips to make the job of organizing medical records go more smoothly. 1. Let the attorney know if you need a certified medical record or an abstract. A medical malpractice case involving a specific admission would be difficult to evaluate without a…
Read MoreWhy Medical Records can be Defective
Medical records can be defective. We know that as legal nurse consultants. The analysis of cases involving medical issues rests heavily on being able to extract meaningful information from medical records. Why are some electronic medical records inherently defective? Medical record software program defects One reason why medical records can be defective is an inadequate…
Read More“If you didn’t chart it, you didn’t do it” Part 3: The Nursing Home Defense Perspective
Do you subscribe to “If you didn’t chart it you didn’t do it”? Incomplete nursing records plague all types of settings and complicate nursing home defense strategies. Nursing homes are particularly vulnerable due to the low number of professional staff available to document. Nursing homes have many challenges, many of which directly affect the quality…
Read MoreNursing malpractice? Death of a 42-year-old
Let’s look at the following situation involving a nursing malpractice case: Facts of a Nursing Malpractice Case A 42-year-old is admitted to an orthopaedic unit after being found in a collapsed abandoned building. He was trapped and pinned under rubble for approximately 27 hours. He sustained a right femur fracture and was also diagnosed with…
Read More“If you didn’t chart it, you didn’t do it” Part 2: The Nursing Home Defense Perspective
Nursing homes are affected by many challenges, many of which directly affect the quality of care and allegations of nursing home negligence. Nursing home defense may center around the documentation. The challenges were highlighted by speakers at Preventing and Defending Long Term Care Litigation at The Conrad in Miami. Pat Iyer moderated a panel of…
Read More8 ways to use electronic monitoring to track nurses and patients
How many ways can we use electronic monitoring to track nurses through technology? Attorneys and legal nurse consultants can tap a number of ways to determine who was doing what at what time. Nurses’ activities can be tracked with the advent of scanned badges, Pmnicell/Pyxis medication machines, telemetry and electronic medical records. Technology can provide…
Read MoreElectronic Medical Records: How Useful Are They?
Click on the image to enlarge. If you can tell me what it says, I will pat you on the back. Electronic medical records can confuse the analysis of a case. Scenario: Mrs. Smith sustained multiple trauma including a severe brain injury after a fall. She was minimally responsive and had severe contractures of all…
Read More“If you didn’t chart it you didn’t do it.” Part 1
In the medical legal world, “if you didn’t chart it, you didn’t do it” engenders more fear in nurses than almost any other phrase as it is used to reiterate the importance of documentation. The phrase is also used to accuse nurses whose documentation is not complete. Incomplete documentation can dramatically affect a malpractice case.…
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