According to a May 16 article in the Boston Business Journal, despite the stellar reputation of many of Massachusetts’ hospitals, you don’t want to be a Medicare patient in a hospital here.
We have nearly a half-dozen medical schools in the Commonwealth, as well as some of the world’s best hospitals, but all of our medical wizardry and brain power appears to be lost on Medicare patients. When it comes to Medicare patients, Massachusetts hospitals’ rate of medical malpractice is two to three times the national average.
Some of the medical malpractice committed on Massachusetts Medicare patients is of the forehead slapping variety. For instance, between October 2008 and July 2010 more than fifteen Massachusetts medicare patients suffered complications after they were sewn up with surgical instruments still inside them. This type of retained surgical instrument medical malpractice is especially egregious as it can be readily avoided by using any manner of new technology, such as tagging surgical tools and sponges with RFID chips.
What is up with prevalence of medical malpractice among Medicare patients? It’s a Massachusetts medical malpractice mystery.

This blog in maintained by the Boston medical malpractice lawyers at The Law Office of Alan H. Crede, P.C.