Emphasis on basic safety reduces neonatal injury

The tremendous complexity involved in carrying a child to term and successfully delivering them is well known to parents in New York and elsewhere. Unfortunately, adverse events do occur, and a substantial proportion of children born every year suffer birth trauma and other injuries that may possibly have been preventable. Recent studies on complex issues such as health care indicate that simple mistakes can be just as dangerous as more complex ones.

To combat this trend, four major hospitals and hospital chains around America have recently instituted changes to their basic safety systems that have decreased the neonatal fatality rate by enormous percentages. One hospital already had a fatality rate 62 percent below the average yet managed to cut the remaining cases in half by re-emphasizing training and basic safety.

The major methods chosen by these hospitals resemble each other to a great degree. They include such simple innovations as training on communications, sending affected personnel through applicable simulations, the adoption of the "bundle" system for measuring essential practice compliance with procedures considered to be risk, and greater skepticism towards the prevalence of delivery through caesarian section. Although it is impossible to judge precisely what effect these reductions have had on litigation, as there is not a direct correlation between negligence and injury, the participating hospitals have seen their claims payments drop by as much as 99 percent.

Damages caused to a child and their family by a preventable birth injury may be found to be worthy of compensation when the case is brought before a court of law. An attorney may be able to help the family develop their legal case and properly present it to the defendants and civil court.

Source: The Huffington Post, "Basic Safety Programs Dramatically Cut Tragedies in Childbirth," Taylor Lincoln, March 18, 2015