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ALDIE, VA (Nov 15, 2012) – For over 30 years, American Medical Experts, LLC (AME) has been the trusted partner of both plaintiff and defense attorneys. AME has given them valuable insight into their medical malpractice and personal injury cases by providing them with the unbiased opinions of the most renowned expert medical witnesses from all specialties nationwide. They offer more information about some featured medical specialties at their partner sites:


To add to this tradition of quality, AME is proud to announce the expansion of its personal injury department. Effective immediately, AME will offer expert opinions in automobile accident, workers’ compensation, federal claims, disability, and independent personal injury cases. This expansion will allow attorneys in all areas of medical malpractice and personal injury to obtain the services of AME’s expert witnesses at a low flat rate fee.

AME’s fees, as always, are the lowest available because they have a low Flat Rate Fee Schedule. The goal is to contain attorneys’ costs in order to build a long-standing relationship with them. Complete Case Reviews are currently only $695. Expert Witness Reports are as low as $995 for the first report and $795 for each additional report. These low rates can be locked in with AME’s three-year rate guarantee. In addition to the three-year rate guarantee, AME also offers rush service (for an additional fee). The expedited review process ensures that AME’s valued clients do not miss pressing deadlines.

AME also provides complimentary medical malpractice case tips to interested attorneys. These medical malpractice articles are written by AME’s highly-qualified expert medical witnesses and they contain exclusive insider tips that can help attorneys build strong, substantiated cases.

American Medical Experts has reviewed over 100,000 cases, worked with over 10,000 medical experts, and served over 50,000 attorneys. They will continue this tradition of service to the legal community with their new, expanded services.

To find out more, please visit AmericanMedicalExperts.com.

Life Care Plans: Essential for Improving Quality of Life and Increasing Recovery

A Life Care Plan is a road map for care, describing anticipated medical and non-medical needs, with associated costs, of a person with a catastrophic injury or chronic illness over an estimated life span. It is based on standards of practice, comprehensive assessment, collaboration with all medical professionals, and analysis of medical records.

Life Care Planners help patients who have suffered catastrophic injuries and illnesses, advocate for them, and plan out their care. Nurse Life Care Planners work with a patient's family, insurance company, attorneys, and others to develop a life care plan, determining the future needs, services, and costs of care for the patient over their lifetime. Many Nurse Life Care Planners work independently from the hospital system, acting as a consultant for businesses, families, or courts of law. Because of life care plans, patients’ caregivers know how often they need to schedule appointments, what to expect in terms of rehabilitation, and what the course of medical care will look like.

Life Care Planners are professional registered nurses with education and expertise in preparing and reviewing Life Care Plans, including medical record review, research, legal aspects, and particular course content on catastrophic or chronic conditions. Registered nurses base our independent practices on the nursing process and nursing diagnosis.

Life Care Planners will provide the appropriate documentation to support the medical services, supplies, and equipment that injured party will need for a reasonable quality of life in relationship to their injuries. Expert witnessing is provided for each case.

The Life Care Planner who prepared this article has over ten years of experience with the medical and vocational case management fields. She holds a college degree in Nursing with additional certifications as a Life Care Planner, Certified Case Manager, and Certified Professional in Utilization Review. She has provided expert witness testimony in cases concerning home safety because of her experience being a home nurse case manager and Director of Performance Improvement. She began her career as a pediatric intensive care nurse and then switched to geriatric nursing. Being a nurse helped her learn how to care for the patient as a whole. She then worked at a home health agency, where it was her responsibility to diversify the company by opening a worker’s compensation case management company. This helped her to understand the impact of nurses in the litigation settlement process as well as learn more about determining the future cost of care in catastrophic cases. As her career has advanced, her knowledge and talents have enabled her to become a teacher, trainer, and mentor. She also provides services as a consultant and expert witness.


This medical malpractice article was written by an expert witness working with American Medical Experts, LLC (AME). AME is the nation’s leading source of medical experts for case review and testimony; AME also offers the lowest flat rate fees on Complete Case Reviews ($695) and Expert Witness Reports ($995). For more information, call 888-678-EXPERTS (888-678-3973) or visit AmericanMedicalExperts.com.

Nursing Home Negligence

If you have a loved-one in a nursing home, you want to know that they are being taken care of just as you would take care of them at home, if you had the means to do it. But in reality, we know this is not the case.

We see continuing cut-backs in the medical industry in efforts to off-set the increase in the rising costs of supplies and services and decreasing payments by insurance companies. This is reflected in less staffing, lacking supplies and cutting corners any way the medical provider is able to – regardless of the impact these actions will have on the patients. This can lead to many serious problems for patients in the nursing home.

Some of the most common problems that we see in nursing homes are patients developing pressure ulcers due to not being turned often enough or if they are incontinent, not having their brief changed often enough. If pressure ulcers are not recognized in the early stages, they can become a serious problem for the patient. If the area is not treated appropriately, the ulcer can become infected and this infection can lead to a more serious infection. There are numerous complications that can occur from a pressure ulcer that is not treated appropriately. Various standardized tools can be used by the nursing home to determine the patient’s risk for developing pressure ulcers and should be completed on all patients when they are admitted to their facility.

Another common problem in the nursing home is patient falls with injury. There are many interventions that can be used in an attempt to prevent a fall, but these interventions are not always implemented by the nursing home staff. Using the bed rails is one way of deterring the patient from rising without assistance. There are also bed alarms that are used to alert the staff when the patient changes from a lying to sitting position. Other interventions that are available are chair alarms, low beds and floor mats. These should be used on any patient that is a risk for falls. A facility should determine the patient’s risk for falls by using a fall risk assessment tool. There are many varieties of these tools available. The most common injuries resulting from nursing home falls are head injuries and hip and/or bone fractures.

Be sure you ask questions of the nursing home on these issues. It is your right to know. Our loved-one’s safety is our top priority. The nursing home should be open and honest with you regarding their protocols on preventing pressure ulcer and fall prevention measures.

The expert who prepared this article has over 18 years of professional experience including home health care, nursing home care and hospital acute care.  She earned her Bachelors of Nursing degree at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She also completed training for legal nurse consulting at The Medical Legal Consulting Institute.

This expert has extensive experience with medical record review, regulatory guidelines including Joint Commission standards, policy and procedure analysis and development, nursing home compliance, and hospital compliance.  She is currently self-employed as a Legal Nurse Consultant providing her expertise to clients to assist them with achieving the answers they require and giving patients the answers they deserve.
To have this expert review your case, prepare a report/affidavit and be listed as one of your experts, please contact American Medical Experts at 888-678- EXPERTS.


This medical malpractice article was written by an expert witness working with American Medical Experts, LLC (AME). AME is the nation’s leading source of medical experts for case review and testimony; AME also offers the lowest flat rate fees on Complete Case Reviews ($695) and Expert Witness Reports ($995). For more information, call 888-678-EXPERTS (888-678-3973) or visit AmericanMedicalExperts.com.

Total Knee and Hip Peri-Prosthetic Infections, Failure to Recognize Risks


Are all total joint peri-operative infections considered expected possible complications of these procedures and not the result of negligence? Of course not. Indeed there are cases where all attempts at identifying risk factors and prevention measures are done and still infection occurs without fault or negligence on the part of the surgeon.

Peri -prosthetic joint infection is a serious complication of total joint replacement resulting in significant morbidity, including pain, loss of function, and potential removal of the prosthesis. Evidence based published studies have shown the impact and varying increases in the occurrence of postoperative total joint infections with known risk factors. Risk factors identified and supported by the evidence include prior infection of the joint(knee), superficial surgical site or limb infection(hip and knee), obesity, extended operative time(> 2.5 hrs,hip and knee), and immunosuppression (knee). Other risk factors of great concern are smoking (for knees), positive nasal cultures for Staph, and low albumin and or cirrhosis. Current evidence –based practice standards and the standard of care demand that physicians use the best available evidence in their clinical decision making.

The STANDARD OF CARE in performing joint replacement surgery is that the surgeon, not the referring primary care physician should determine risk factors for a patient considering a total joint arthroplasty.

The STANDARD of CARE would the dictate that the surgeon has an obligation and the duty to discuss these risk factors and the probability of the patient getting a post op infection in the scenario of taking all precautions possible. NEGLIGENCE would be found when a surgeon makes no effort to identify the known published risk factors and does not discuss risk factors with the patient, and then the patient develops a post operative joint infection. The literature reports 40-60% of all post operative total joint infections could be prevented by following the standard of care. For example, The Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center has algorithms for risk factor identification and limits up to an acceptable or not values such as positive nasal cultures, diabetic A1C levels below 7.5, BMI at 40 or below, and off any nicotine products for 2 mos. prior to surgery.

REFERENCES

1. Guide to the Elimination of Orthopedic Surgical Site Infections. An APIC Guide 2010.
2. Prevention of Prosthetic Joint Infections, Wolters Kluwar Health Clinical Solutions, Larry M. Baddour, MD: Ellie Berbari, M.D.
3. Prevention of Surgical Site Infection. PTY Ching, MD
4. The Diagnosis of Peri-prosthetic Joint Infections of the Hip and Knee, Guideline and Evidence Report Adopted by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons Board of Directors---Subsection Risk Factors June 18, 2010.


This medical malpractice article was written by an expert witness working with American Medical Experts, LLC (AME). AME is the nation’s leading source of medical experts for case review and testimony; AME also offers the lowest flat rate fees on Complete Case Reviews ($695) and Expert Witness Reports ($995). For more information, call 888-678-EXPERTS (888-678-3973) or visit AmericanMedicalExperts.com.