By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Patients often sue for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the medical care rendered, but rather for the human care that is perceived as lacking. The last few weeks were very difficult for my family and friends in the medical sense. I had one family member in an ...
Your Patient Died: Should You Send the Family a Card? By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Bereavement care is part of the job, no matter how difficult it is to talk about death and deal with grieving family members. “Callous disregard.” These two little emotionally loaded words are how the plaintiff complaint summed up the following story from ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Clearly it is a legal liability when HCPs do not follow doctor’s orders but when the patient chooses not to follow doctor’s orders, things are not so clear. Most of the lawsuits I deal with have more than one named defendant. For example, the plaintiff (typically a deceased patient’s next of kin) ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Lawsuits are often settled out-of-court because the medical record documentation is not defensible. Incomplete, illogical, and inconsistent records are far too common so it important to avoid the common pitfalls. After reviewing hundreds of medical charts involved in litigation, I noticed many of the same problems occurring in the documentation over and ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Plaintiffs often express shock and disbelief after eschar is removed, which often leaves a wound larger than the original size of the eschar. “We were in shock and couldn’t believe our eyes. It was like half her foot was gone.” “My husband and I were horrified when we saw what they did.” ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LDN, NWCC, FAND Inaccurate and incomplete intake and output records pose a problem in litigation as well as a risk to the patient who requires monitoring of fluid balance for medical reasons. “Would you agree that the nurses did not know how to do basic arithmetic?” Of course nurses know how to add and subtract ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Wound care is a stressful profession, and sometimes your empathy bucket becomes empty, but job burnout is not a proper professional or legal defense. A group of my professional friends were having lunch together and catching up when one friend disclosed that she was taking a month off of work. We all ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Obesity presents challenges to wound healing, but with knowledge and appropriate care interventions, we can provide optimal conditions to support the best possible outcome for every patient, no matter what size. The US obesity epidemic reached a new all-time high in 2016, according to newly released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, NWCC, FAND Nutrition is frequently conjoined to wound care lawsuits because patients often lose weight so it is important to thoroughly document nutrition interventions and education. Most pressure injury lawsuits begin as just that – a lawsuit initiated due to an acquired pressure injury. Usually the wound in question never healed to closure, became ...
By Nancy Collins, PhD, RDN, LD, FAPWCA, FAND The battle between optimal medical care and patient rights is one to fight with empathy and finesse to keep it out of the courtroom. I recently reviewed a lawsuit filed by the family of a patient* with a spinal cord injury. The patient was involved in a car accident and sustained multiple ...
