Utah Med Law

"Sentinel events" is the term given by the medical establishment to designate medical mistakes that result in an unexpected death or a serious physical or psychological injury that otherwise should not happen.  They are meant to be tracked in order to alert the medical profession to system-wide problems in patient care.  By law, as dictated in the Utah Administrative Code (R380-200) under authority of the Utah Code (63G-3-102(5)) Utah hospitals are required to report these medical mistakes to the Utah Department of Health.  For a full detailed expose on sentinel events in Utah see this article in the Salt Lake Tribune titled "Nearly 90 Major Medical Mistakes Logged at Utah Hospitals in 2008."

Despite tougher evidence rules passed by Utah legislators and the general public perception that medical malpractice cases are frivolous and groundless, medical malpractice continues to be a serious and increasing problem that is killing people in Utah.  There were 89 of these most serious sentinel events reported in 2008 - up from 57 in 2007 - a 56% increase.  It is also widely suspected that these sentinel events are only the tip of the medical malpractice problem showing above the water-line.  Many errors that do not meet the devastating requirements of the sentinel event definition and many incidents go unreported by hospitals and other facilities because they are afraid that this information will be used against them in court to prove medical negligence.

I am an attorney who represents people injured by medical malpractice.  People injured by medical malpractice need to be compensated by the harm visited upon them by careless health care providers and careless facilities that are more interested in profit than truly correcting what is wrong with the system.  Profit, whether derived from doing more with less or not paying compensation to the people injured is still profit - make no mistake, the interest in curtailing medical malpractice claims is based on only one thing - the profit motive.

The current system of civil litigation is expensive and especially so for medical malpractice because experts are required to prove medical negligence.  Unfortunately, unless you are horrifically injured as the result of medical malpractice, the cost of litigating the case makes the case economically infeasible.  I receive calls every day from people who, in my opinion, have been malpracticed on and have sustained injury as a result.  Unfortunately, because of the high cost to litigate the case I can not bring these cases forward.  These cases make up some of the lurking ice berg of medical malpractice in Utah and nation-wide.

In my opinion, from the perspective as a medical malpractice attorney, retired registered nurse, and recent patient is that there should be no restriction on medical malpractice cases whatsoever.  The profit motive and the health care profession and facilities would be forced to pay for the true damage they inflict and forced to correct problems that cause medical malpractice.  Health care delivery would improve and my practice would be put out of business - a goal many doctors and health care facilities would welcome I am sure.  As a matter of fact I would love to be put out of business as a medical malpractice attorney - believe it or not!  Simplistic?  Perhaps, but this premise is true, accurate and based on American ideals of being held responsible for the wrongs you do and letting the free market correct inefficiencies.

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