Posts by Tracy Liberatore
Alarming Liability Exposure Due to Medication Errors
Medication errors remain one of the most persistent—and preventable—sources of patient harm in the United States healthcare system. The scale of the issue is not abstract. Each year, adverse drug events (ADEs) account for more than 700,000 emergency room visits, approximately 100,000 hospitalizations, and as many as 9,000 deaths. Critically, roughly half of these events…
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$70.8 Million Stroke Verdict in Florida: Emergency Room Discharge Decisions, Contractor Liability, and the Medicaid Damage Cap Battle
The recent $70.8 million jury verdict in Chiaka Stewart v. Tampa General Hospital, Inphynet Contracting Services, LLC, and Heather Anderson, APRN underscores several core dynamics that continue to define high-exposure medical malpractice litigation in Florida: emergency department discharge decision-making, stroke-related diagnostic pathways, contractor liability, and the evolving landscape of statutory damage limitations—particularly as they relate…
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Communication Failures in Medicine: The Silent Catalyst Behind 55,372 Malpractice Cases
Medical malpractice litigation is often framed around technical failures—surgical errors, diagnostic delays, or improper treatment decisions. Yet beneath these clinical missteps lies a less visible but equally consequential cause: communication breakdown. A recent study by CRICO and Candello, organizations affiliated with the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, reveals that communication failures were…
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When Waiting Kills: The Rising Risk of Delay‑Based Malpractice
Growing appointment backlogs, pandemic-era staffing shortages, and persistent access problems have already generated a measurable uptick in “delay-in-treatment” malpractice suits. Courts still apply traditional negligence elements—duty, breach of the relevant standard of care, causation, and damages—but recent case law and empirical data show that timeliness is increasingly treated as an indispensable component of the physician’s…
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The American Medical Association’s Concerns Over Nurse Practitioner Scope Creep: Implications for Medical Malpractice
In recent years, the healthcare landscape has witnessed a significant shift with nurse practitioners (NPs) assuming roles traditionally held by medical doctors (MDs). This expansion of responsibilities, often referred to as “scope creep,” has garnered attention from various medical organizations, notably the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA has expressed concerns that this trend may…
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