Page 10 - 2022 Risk Basics - Anesthesiology

SVMIC Risk Basics: Anesthesiology

injury (and, thus, a more lucrative payday), make anesthesia

malpractice cases particularly attractive to pursue.

While there have been tremendous safety improvements
through science, medicine, technology, regulation, and

techniques over the last three decades, all risks associated
with anesthesia have not been eliminated. Anesthesia and

surgery are inherently dangerous, and the opportunity for

human error continues to exist. Improved technology,
guidelines, checklists, timeouts, and other advancements are

only successful if they are implemented in a consistent and

uniform manner. If these improvements are ignored,
anesthesia is no safer today than it was three decades ago.

Indefensibility Issues

We’re going to take a look at SVMIC closed claims where there

was a paid loss for anesthesiologists, CRNAs, and/or the
group practicing within the hospital or ambulatory surgical

center settings. When SVMIC reviews claims where we have
paid a loss on behalf of an insured, we attempt to identify the

reason we were unable to successfully defend the case in

order to extrapolate teaching points. Because these are the
reasons that contribute toward making the case more difficult

to defend in front of a jury, we refer to them as “indefensibility

issues”. We are going to be examining each major category —
documentation, communication, medication errors, and

additional issues — of indefensibility issues relative to the
provision of anesthesia throughout the remainder of this

course. Let’s begin with documentation.

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