Hip & Knee Replacement Failure Made Worse—When It's The Wrong Knee or Hip…

Toronto, ONHip and knee implant replacement failure is most often thought of in terms of failure involving the actual implant, or physical structure of the medical device involved. However the genesis of a hip replacement lawsuit and the subsequent involvement of a hip replacement lawyer can go beyond the implant, and instead address the knee or hip procedure itself.

If both knees, and both hips are addressed at the same time, then the concern is less of an issue. However when a healthy knee, or hip is replaced in error by a surgical team—leaving the diseased hip or knee untreated—failure is a given. In this case, failure of the surgeon and surgical team.

Dr. Ken Walker, a columnist for Sun Media in Canada who writes under the pen name Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, raises the oft-feared possibility that the wrong limb could be treated in a surgical procedure. The implied malpractice aside, Dr. Walker refers to a study by the Harvard Medical School that reveals a proven method to cut deaths and other avoidable complications from surgery by up to 40 percent.

Taking a Cue From the Cockpit to Prevent Medical Failure

In analyzing surgical complications and death rates after surgery in hospitals in the US, Canada, England, New Zealand, Jordan, India, Tanzania and the Philippines Dr. Atul Gawande, Associate Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston discovered that airline pilots reduced accidents by always ticking off a list of procedures to be completed before take off. He concluded that surgical errors could be reduced in the same fashion.

"On his two-minute checklist, the first item is to confirm the patient's identity. Next, what type of operation is being done, and where the incision will be made to avoid operating on the wrong breast or amputating the wrong leg," Dr. Walker observes.

In Dr. Gawande's study, the pilot-inspired approach decreased complications and death by one-third in eight hospitals studied in various parts of the globe. Complications decreased overall from 11 percent down to 7 percent, and hospital deaths by 40 percent.

Walker notes that there are 234 million surgical procedures performed globally every year. The potential for the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide may depend on the adoption of such a procedural checklist. Dr. Gawande related an event whereby a patient of famed Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard was spared a potential life-threatening event after the surgeon was prompted to ensure sufficient supplies of blood were available for a complete transfusion.