Syracuse Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

"Hospital errors result in the death of nearly 200,000 Americans every year," said New York wrongful death lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq. In an effort to improve patient care, and to attract more doctors, upgrade its information/technology systems and stabilize its finances, Community Memorial Hospital, located at 150 Broad Street in Hamilton, New York, just minutes from Colgate University, will soon link to Syracuse's Crouse Hospital.

CMH is a 40-bed hospital where approximately 5,000 procedures were performed in 2009 and 2010. Most of those procedures (more than 4,000) were diagnostic or therapeutic in nature. Since 2005, CMH has been investigated twelves times by the New York State Department of Health. According to the NYSDOH website, eight investigations resulted in no citations. However, four investigations resulted in a total of 33 citations including statement(s) of deficiency for, e.g., infection control, anesthesia services, pharmaceutical services, quality of care, supervision of nursing care, nursing services, medical staff and incident reporting.

Hospital officials noted that the Crouse-CMH affiliation is not a merger or asset acquisition like the recent transaction between Syracuse's Community General Hospital and Upstate Medical University. According to Syracuse.com, Dr. Paul Kronenberg, Crouse's president and CEO, noted that "the affiliation with Community Memorial is part of Crouse's strategy to develop an integrated delivery network and expand its geographic reach."

Hospital affiliations, or a link between a small hospital and a large hospital, are one way to decrease hospital negligence leading to New York medical malpractice lawsuits for personal injury and wrongful death. Where these arrangements function correctly, the smaller hospital is able to draw upon the knowledge and resources of the larger institution and prevent harm to patients from, e.g., surgical errors, prescription medication errors, emergency room mistakes and misdiagnosis or the failure to diagnose.

"Even though stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, the signs and symptoms are often overlooked in the emergency room," said Syracuse medical malpractice lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC.

"We are currently representing a man who actually asked emergency room staff is he was having a stroke. He was, but was diagnosed with a 'headache" and some over-the-counter Tylenol. The neurological damage progressed and one side of his body no longer functions." The failure to diagnose a stroke occurs when emergency room personnel, especially in small towns, are not familiar with what to look for in a patient. A headache with other symptoms like loss of coordination and slurred speech should prompt a thorough investigation, including diagnostic imaging.

A new smart phone application may make diagnosis easier -- by enabling doctors to diagnose a stroke remotely. The application is called Resolution MD. The program allows physicians to view high-resolution three dimensional images of the brain on an iPhone, iPad or Android phone. According to a study of the software, it was 94-100% accurate.

Prompt diagnosis of a stroke is critical because damage increases with time. Depending upon the type of stroke, medication called tPA may be administered to relieve symptoms. Information about tPA can be found in our prior post entitled "What Is tPA And Is It Available In Central New York Emergency Rooms?" Most emergency rooms, especially New York certified stroke centers, should have tPA on hand.

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