Hospitals...
'The chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange has told hospitals to expect
to lose their malpractice coverage for Y2K events.
This is the first step in shutting down the medical profession. Doctors,
hospitals and all forms of testing and therapeutic facilities and
potentially the entire drug industry are about to lose their insurance.
Any continuation of medical care will be carried out at the direct
personal risk of the individual caregiver.
Doctors are admitted to practice in hospitals. Hospitals will require
doctors to show evidence of financial responsibility. Without malpractice
insuraance, doctors will be at personal risk for lawsuits springing from
substandard care or improper care or injury due to Y2K problems, including
misdiagnosis, improper dosage or therapy, inadequate or confused records
and any other possible difficulty arising from any problem connected to
any irregularity in procedure associated with any form of electronics or
computers.
Doctors will insist on being indemnified by hospitals and hospitals will
insist on being protected under doctors' policies. Insurance companies
will refuse to cover anyone.
Unless a hospital can thoroughly test, fix or replace virtually every
device that makes it more than just a hotel, that hospital will have to
close its doors. If doctors can not demonstrate malpractice insurance,
they will be dropped from practice by a hospital unless they are willing
to and able to put their personal assets up as security against
malpractice claims. Losing access to hospitals will damage doctor's
practices and probably force them to quit practicing. How can they provide
full service to their patients without access to hospitals?
So the hospitals are trapped. If they do not have their own malpractice
insurance, the Directors will be personally liable for Y2K induced injury
to patients. It will not be considered prudent for the Directors to vote
hospital money for their personal protection when they failed to authorize
Y2K remediation in a timely fashion. Stock holders will be very angry when
the value of their stock drops to zero when hospitals close their doors.
Hospitals will not wait until 2000 to start refusing patients. Once
insurance riders start restricting Y2K coverage hospitals will have to
start cutting back their services immediately. There is a reasonable
expectation that Y2K problems with computers will hit in 1999 and that
creates risk. All hospitals will start evicting their long term care
patients to other facilities. All hospitals will have the same insurance
problems. Those that move quickest to shed their vegetables and terminal
patients and other permanent residents will be the lucky ones. As word
spreads, no hospitals will accept any chronic illness patients or surgery
patients that could require extended in-patient care. Emergency rooms will
stop accepting critical care patients. No hospital, except government
facilities, will admit patients that could become long term residents.
Community hospitals are subsidized with tax dollars. Someone has
responsibility to see that the community gets value for its money.
Community hospitals will be shut down just like for profit hospitals and
there will be lots of political heat and burned scapegoats.
Most hospitals are financed by big ticket borrowing from banks. The banks
will take a very heavy hit when the hospitals close their doors and have
zero cash flow to repay loans. Will the banks foreclose on hospitals? Are
communities going to be stiffed on bond issues for medical facilities
guaranteed by the tax payers?
Patients will be very concerned when hospitals evict them in order to
close their doors to avoid Y2K risks. Those patients will be angry both at
doctors and at the hospitals. It is reasonable to assume that hospitals
will, at some point stop receiving patients that might need long term care
that could expose them to Y2K risks. This will put further pressure on
doctors and ultimately lead to more law suits.
Doctors and hospitals are all tightly wrapped in contractual obligations
to HMO's and it's hard to believe that patients and businesses who have
been paying into insurance policies are going to feel good about losing
their local medical services.
What's going to happen to schools? Will colleges and universities continue
to provide health care coverage for students? Will school athletic progams
at any level be able to continue without full medical care available?
Doctors are about to get a chance to demonstrate how they are not
practicing medicine just for the money. How many doctors are going to put
their personal assets at risk to continue treating patients? How many
doctors will continue practicing medicine without access to full service
hospitals? What do you expect from your doctor when you go to him with a
problem? Do you expect to be treated no matter what or do you expect to be
refused medical care at the doctor's convenience?
Y2K is heating up and the consequences are about to destroy our present
way of life.
Allen Comstock
afr.com.au
Financial Review
Wednesday, April 8, 1998
Another Bug for the Doctors and Nurses
By Beverley Head
Maurice Newman warned health-care professionals of Millennium Bug problems
ahead.
Australian health care professionals were warned yesterday that their
professional indemnity insurance policies were likely to exclude year
2000-related claims, leaving them exposed to patients' claims if equipment
fails to work properly because of the Millennium Bug.
The chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, Mr Maurice Newman, speaking
yesterday at the Australian Private Hospitals Conference on the Gold
Coast, told delegates that they were in the "firing line" regarding Year
2000 computer issues.
Mr Newman said he believed that industry and Government at all levels
would not finish their year 2000 projects in time, and cautioned of the
potential "cascading" effects of embedded controller chips, which may
feature date logic that could then affect the operation of other
information systems.
He warned that for the health-care industry in particular "how you prepare
for the year 2000 may have life-and-death consequences".
Mr Newman, who is chairman of the Government's Year 2000 Steering
Committee, told delegates they would not be able to rely on insurance
policies to protect them.
"Lloyds underwriters are already withdrawing cover from airlines and air
safety regulatory authorities if their situation is unsatisfactory," he
said.
Describing the Millennium Bug as a "highly contagious, all-pervasive
disease which unless controlled will assume epidemic proportions", Mr
Newman warned that there was a significant threat to public health, safety
and critical infrastructure.
Ms Jeanette Reicha, information systems manager for Epworth Hospital,
stressed to delegates the importance of including equipment containing
embedded controllers in year 2000 remediation programs.
"Think about all the places that chips are used in a hospital, lab or
clinic," she said. "For example, infusion pumps, laboratory equipment,
MRIs, CT scanners, dialysis, chemotherapy equipment, intensive care and so
on.
"How many medical devices do a date, age or timing calculation? Probably
more than you know. How many of these are going to fail or give erroneous
results? No-one is sure."
Ms Reicha said hospitals also needed to consider their supply chains.
"What if the Blood Bank doesn't take adequate measures to ensure
uninterrupted reliable operation? Or your linen service, food suppliers,
oxygen suppliers or ancillary services such as radiology and pathology?
How long can a hospital function without critical goods and services, and
at what point do shortages start to impact on the quality of care?
"Do you think it will be an adequate legal defence to claim that you were
prepared but your suppliers weren't?"
______
Path: news.worldonline.nl!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news1.ispnews.com!news11.ispnews.com!hek48.initco.net!user
From: comstock@wild-life.com (Allen Comstock)
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
Subject: Medical Malpractice Insurance to Exclude Y2K
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 00:21:51 -0700
Organization: Comstock Graphics (Montana)
Lines: 158
Message-ID: <comstock-2204980021510001@hek48.initco.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hek48.initco.net
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