Examination of Healthcare Law: Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA)

Examination of Healthcare Laws
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Examination of Healthcare Laws
Healthcare laws are significant statutes that guide healthcare providers toward offering effective medical services. Physicians and health organizations should always endeavor to comply with these laws to prevent lawsuits and losses. The increasing rate of medical practices like negligence in hospitals is one of the key reasons for enacting healthcare laws. Since their implementation, healthcare quality has improved, and the number of lawsuits against hospitals has declined. Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) is a healthcare law that has significantly improved hospital care. This statute is specific to screening, stabilizing, and transferring patients with emergency medical conditions and active labor. Failure to appropriately provide a medical screening exam in an emergency department or make efforts to stabilize any emergency medical condition before referral or discharge is regarded as an EMTALA violation. This report analyzes EMTALA violation based on Cynthia Adae v. The University of Cincinnati court case. In this case, Cynthia Adae (complainant) sued the University of Cincinnati for negligence after suffering paralysis. She claimed that his condition was caused by the hospital’s failure to appropriately screen her condition and stabilize her before discharge. The court found that the hospital was negligent in handling Adae’s condition and awarded her $3.3 compensation for the damages (Justia, n.d.). Following the provisions of EMTALA, it is clear that the hospital violated this law, subjecting the patient to severe injuries.
Court Case: Paralyzed Woman Settles Medical Negligence Case with the University of Cincinnati for $2.3 Million.
Court Case Analysis
The case of Cynthia Adae v. The University of Cincinnati is a medical malpractice lawsuit filed on October 23, 2007, at the Court of Claims of Ohio. The plaintiff, Cynthia Adae, claimed that she suffered permanent neurological deficits when the physicians at the University of Cincinnati failed to timely diagnose her condition. According to the case, Mrs. Adae went to Clinton Memorial Hospital emergency room on June 28, 2006, with the following symptoms: right shoulder pain, a non-productive cough, limited range of motion of her right upper extremity, and a 103-degree fever (courtnewsohio.gov, n.d.). On June 29, 2006, the hospital admitted her and conducted a chest CT scan, which read normal (Justia, n.d.). The complainant’s doctors considered an infectious process and contemplated performing a spinal tap to rule out an infection. However, they never ordered the spinal tap procedure. The physicians ordered and conducted blood culture tests but discharged the patient from the hospital without a diagnosis and the benefit of the test results (Justia, n.d.).
Two days later, the blood culture test results indicated that Adae had contracted a severe infection: Staphylococcus aureus (courtnewsohio.gov, n.d.). Three days after the discharge, one of the complainant’s physicians was informed of the results but failed to advise her. Adae visited another hospital emergency ...