Are You an Effective Communicator?

When specialists fail to accurately communicate important patient information,it can have enormous repercussions on that patient ’s health along with lasting legal consequences. According to the non-profit healthcare accreditation organization, Joint Commission, 70 percentof “adverse health outcomes” derive from failed physician communication. In an opinion piece published in theJournal of the American College of Radiology,radiologist Leonard Berlin examined how lack of specialist communication plays out in malpractice lawsuits and physician relationships.Dr. Berlin describes a lawsuit in which a 53-year-old male patient alleged that the medical center and radiologist failed to effectively communicate suspicious colon findings to the patient ’s urologist. The man had gone to the urologist for a routine pre-lithotripsy workup, which went smoothly, but he was never alerted to the colon findings. When the radiologist had written up the CT study, he had called the urologist to inform him about the abnormality, but no one picked up the pho ne, and he left a voicemail asking the urologist to call him back, which he never did. Nineteen months later, the man was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. The patient claimed that this communication breakdown constitutes a breach of standard care and a violation of American College of Radiology (ACR) communication parameter. In the end, the man received a $4.5 million settlement in order so that both parties could forego a public tr...
Source: radRounds - Category: Radiology Authors: Source Type: blogs