Increasingly, healthcare
lawyers are complementing their use of "opinion" expert witnesses with
evidence-based expertise - from research to data analysis, white papers,
and evidence-based scientific and technical expert testimony. Some
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staff and partners have worked with defense and plaintiff attorneys on
providing independent expert services that render evidence-based opinions
- from initial reviews to case consultation, expert opinions, and trial
testimony.
One recent area of attention
has been in response to a paper co-authored by Ivo Abraham and published
in the August 2005 issue of Medical Care. Hailed as one
of the four most important papers on nurse staffing and patient ratios by
the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, this article was the
first scientific paper to the cost-effectiveness of low patient-to-nurse
staffing ratios in terms of deaths averted - at a cost well below many
standard medical care practices (cervical cancer screening, thrombolytic
therapy in acute myocardial infarct, ...). The persistent nursing
shortage; enacted legislation mandating minimum patient to nurse staffing
ratios (e.g., California); pending legislation in several jurisdictions;
the scientific evidence that higher ratios increase patients' mortality
risk by up to 28%n ... all these factors show that patient safety and
patient mortality are critical but modifiable factors.
Contact us when you are
dealing with litigation that may benefit from objective, scientific, and
relevant expertise.
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