Covington Personal Injury Law Blog

Misdiagnoses and delayed diagnoses are behind more than 100,000 cases of permanent disability or death every year in the U.S. A study from Johns Hopkins University shows that three conditions in particular are frequently linked to diagnostic errors. Kentucky residents should know that the "Big Three," as researchers label them, are cancer, vascular events and infection.

About 75% of diagnosis-related claims involve the "Big Three" with 37% attributed to cancer, 22% to vascular events and 13% to infections. Lung cancer was the most frequently misdiagnosed cancer while stroke was the most frequent vascular event and sepsis the most frequent form of infection. Other commonly reported conditions that fell under the three categories were heart attack, meningitis, breast cancer and prostate cancer.

It's difficult to help an aging parent transition to fully-assisted living. You may have researched nursing homes in your area for months before choosing a particular facility. Even after your parent has settled into a new residence, you might still feel anxious and worried about the quality of care. It's understandable as there are many nursing home negligence incidents in Kentucky and elsewhere.

Sadly, many such incidents ultimately cause patient fatalities. That's why it's critical that you keep your eyes and ears open whenever you visit or talk to your loved one. At the same time, you should be able to reasonably expect that your loved one's caregivers will act according to the highest accepted standards of care at all times. If that doesn't happen, it's imperative that you know where to seek support.

When people in Kentucky go into the hospital, they want to be able to rely on their doctors to provide accurate, precise care to treat their illnesses. However, some people may wind up even more seriously injured than before due to physician errors or medical mistakes. One of the most common types of injury suffered due to a health care provider's negligence is a medication injury. As electronic health records, or EHRs, have become more prominent in the industry, many providers and patients have complained about issues with service and safety linked to these records.

In particular, over 30% of all patients harmed due to medical errors linked to an EHR were hurt due to a medication error. One study analyzed 248 medical malpractice cases linked to malfunctioning or improper use of EHRs and found that there is a particular risk of wrong dosage or wrong medication errors linked to these records. Of the cases studied, 146 took place in an outpatient setting while 102 were linked to inpatient care. The cases in outpatient care were likely to be less severe, probably because the most vulnerable patients were receiving inpatient treatment.

The Fourth of July, even more than Christmas, New Year's or Thanksgiving, sees the highest number of DUI-related fatalities in Kentucky and across the U.S. A total of 1,192 people died in drunk driving crashes during this holiday from 2010 to 2017. It turns out Memorial Day is the second deadliest major U.S. holiday with 1,105 people dying in those same eight years.

The DUI fatality rate comes to an average of 42.4 per day for the Fourth of July. However, that rate varies depending on what day the July Fourth falls on. Saturdays have the lowest DUI fatality rate (36.3 per day), whereas Wednesdays have the highest (52). On average, a weekday Fourth of July has a fatality rate of 43.4.