Google’s driverless car technology uses sensors and cameras to detect the physical form of the road, read signs and watch for vehicles and pedestrians.  The car uses the data to adjust speed and steering and apply the brakes.

Sebastian Thrun, Google’s lead developer of its driverless car technology, has made the claim that the system will one day be able to reduce traffic accidents by 90 percent.  In 2009, there were approximately 5.5 million car accidents in the United States, with 9.5 million vehicles involved.  There were 33,808 traffic deaths and 2.2 million people were injured, with 240,000 requiring hospitalization.

The financial cost of traffic accidents is enormous as well.  The American Automobile Association (AAA) studied data from automobile crashes in the 99 largest urban areas in the country and arrived at a cost estimate of $299.5 billion.  Extrapolating from AAA’s figures, it is estimated that the nationwide cost is about $450 billion. This includes damage to property, productivity loss, medical costs, and lowered quality of life.

Google’s bold claim is that its technology can save nearly 30,000 lives per year in the United States, prevent almost 2 million injuries and reduce costs from traffic accidents by $400 billion per year.  The claim may seem extravagant, but it is based in the simple reality that nearly all traffic accidents are caused by human error.  Machines do fail, but not nearly as often as humans do.

On a global scale, the potential impact on traffic safety would be even greater.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are approximately 1.2 million traffic deaths in the world each year, and nearly 50 million injuries.  The problem is expected to get worse.  By 2030, the WHO estimates that traffic accidents will be the fifth leading cause of death in the world, or 3.6 percent of total deaths.  This would be a startling increase from 2004, when auto collisions were the ninth leading cause of deaths in the world, at 2.2 percent of the total.

The driverless car concept has implications beyond safety as well.  Google claims that its technology can also reduce wasted time during commutes by allowing cars to drive faster and closer together, relieving traffic jams.  According to one study, traffic jams waste 1.9 billion gallons of gas and 4.8 billion hours of drivers’ time each year.  In monetary terms, that amounts to $101 billion in gasoline costs and loss of productivity.

In addition, driverless cars could theoretically reduce the number of cars needed in a community, as sharing of vehicles would become more efficient.  After all, most people only use their vehicle at certain times during the day, leaving most cars unused about 95 percent of the time.  The technology could have a positive impact on reducing pollution, and developing countries may be able to reduce vehicle-intensive development if fewer cars are needed.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, there are more than 31 million injuries requiring the care of a doctor each year in the United States. Two million people require hospitalization from injuries annually, and 162,000 die as a result of their injuries. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, automobile accidents result in three million injuries and 40,000 deaths each year in the United States. Truck accidents cause an additional 60,000 injuries and 5,000 deaths per year. Construction accidents result in approximately 300,000 injuries and 1,000 deaths annually, and medical errors account for 98,000 deaths per year. Liability for these injuries is often determined through personal injury litigation.

In 2005, a total of 26,948 contract, tort and real property trials were conducted nationwide. Personal injury or tort trials made up almost 60 percent of the total, according to a study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Justice. Given that only about four percent of personal injury cases go to trial, the number of lawsuits filed is quite significant.

The majority of personal injury trials involve automobile accidents. Medical malpractice trials account for 15 percent of the total, and 5 percent of trials involve products liability.

When personal injury cases go to trial, plaintiffs win about half the time, according to the study. Plaintiffs won 61 percent of the time in automobile accident cases and 50 percent of the time in intentional tort trials. Plaintiffs won 39 percent of premises liability cases, 38 percent of product liability trials and 19 percent of medical malpractice cases. In all tort trials, judges sided with plaintiffs 56 percent of the time, and juries found for the plaintiff in 51 percent of cases.

The median award for a plaintiff in a tort trial was $31,000, with automobile accident cases bringing in a median award of $16,000. Higher damage awards were associated with less frequently litigated cases, such as medical malpractice, with a median award of $679,000, products liability ($748,000), intentional torts ($100,000) and premises liability ($90,000).

The study also indicated that taking a personal injury lawsuit to trial is a lengthy process. The average length of tort lawsuits that went to trial was 23 months. Automobile accident cases took 20 months on average, with a 31-month average for medical malpractice cases.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Those accidents have tragic consequences. According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation, there were 3,331 fatalities in distraction-related motor vehicle accidents in 2011, an increase from 3,267 in 2010. Approximately 387,000 people suffered injuries in distraction-related crashes. Australian researchers found that motorists who use portable electronic devices have a four times greater risk of being in an accident that results in an injury. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that drivers who try to send text messages while driving run a 23 times greater risk of crashing.

Electronic gadgets are not the only culprit causing drivers to become distracted. Anything that takes the driver’s attention away from driving can cause an accident. This can include a wide variety of stimuli. Visual distractions may include attempting to read a map or look at a GPS device while behind the wheel, or reading billboards or street signs. Manual distractions occur whenever the driver attempts another activity in addition to driving, such as eating or drinking, shaving or putting on makeup. Cognitive distractions are things that take one’s mind off the task of driving, such as conversation with someone in the car or on the phone.

There are laws in the state of Illinois intended to reduce distracted driving. As of 2013, drivers of commercial vehicles may not use hand-held devices for making phone calls or sending text messages while driving, which is in line with federal regulations. All drivers are prohibited from sending text messages while driving, and drivers are prohibited from using their phones at all in construction zones or school zones. Drivers with graduated licenses are also prohibited from using cell phones.

In the City of Chicago, drivers using cell phones must use a hands-free device. Fines range from $100-$500. Other municipalities have passed legislation restricting the use of cell phones while driving, including Evanston, Deerfield, Winnetka and Highland Park. The village of Hinsdale has passed a general ordinance prohibiting any type of distracted driving, including reading or grooming.

Driving while distracted can cause accidents that result in serious injury. If you or someone you know has been injured in an automobile accident, contact an experienced car accident attorney right away.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The largest personal injury verdict of the year was for $900 million, which included $700 million in punitive damages. In Webb v. Trans Healthcare Inc., the plaintiff was a resident at a nursing home operated by the defendant. He claimed to have suffered numerous injuries, including multiple infections and large bedsores.

The complaint alleged that after Webb entered the facility following a stroke, he suffered paralysis and was in need of 24-hour care. Webb had pressure sores on his feet, legs and buttocks. He also had an unexplained weight loss and multiple infections. The complaint claimed that the defendant corporations were withdrawing money from the nursing homes they owned, resulting in substandard care.

Trans Health Management Inc. is no longer in business, and its parent corporation, Trans Healthcare Inc., is in receivership. The Maryland receivership stopped defending the case in 2010, after the plaintiff’s firm promised not to bring any further claims, according to the receivership’s attorney, Maria Chavez-Ruark. Circuit Judge Victor Hulslander did not grant Chavez-Ruark’s motion to delay the trial, and he barred her from the courtroom. She vowed to appeal if a new trial is not granted. With the company in receivership, Webb’s widow’s ability to collect on the judgment is uncertain. Webb died in 2010.

In the case of Garcia v. Best for Less Food Mart, a Tampa, Florida jury issued a verdict awarding $716.5 million to the family and estate of a 32-year-old man killed by a drunken driver in a car crash. The defendant owned a convenience store that sold beer to the teenage driver who caused the collision.

Samuel Garcia III was killed in front of an Apollo Beach, Florida restaurant when David Holdsworth, 17, crashed into him, traveling at 75 miles per hour. Holdsworth had purchased alcoholic drinks twice earlier in the day at the Best for Less Food Mart. He is currently serving a prison sentence for DUI manslaughter. The plaintiff’s ability to collect on the judgment is in question, as the store’s owner resides overseas.

Another nursing home resident was awarded $200 million, which included $140 million in punitive damages, after a jury found the defendant liable for her death after a fall in Nunziata v. Trans Health Management. The defendant is part of the same set of corporations that were defendants in the Webb case.

Elvira Nunziata was 92 years old when she suffered a fall down a stairwell in the nursing home where she lived. Nunziata had dementia and was strapped into a wheelchair. She entered the stairwell through a door likely left open by employees taking a cigarette break. By the time of the jury award, the company that operated the nursing home no longer existed. One company had inherited the company’s assets and another its liabilities. The defendant was not represented at trial and the ability to collect on the judgment is in question.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Google’s driverless car technology uses sensors and cameras to detect the physical form of the road, read signs and watch for vehicles and pedestrians. The car uses the data to adjust speed and steering and apply the brakes.

Sebastian Thrun, Google’s lead developer of its driverless car technology, has made the claim that the system will one day be able to reduce traffic accidents by 90 percent. In 2009, there were approximately 5.5 million car accidents in the United States, with 9.5 million vehicles involved. There were 33,808 traffic deaths and 2.2 million people were injured, with 240,000 requiring hospitalization.

The financial cost of traffic accidents is enormous as well. The American Automobile Association (AAA) studied data from automobile crashes in the 99 largest urban areas in the country and arrived at a cost estimate of $299.5 billion. Extrapolating from AAA’s figures, it is estimated that the nationwide cost is about $450 billion. This includes damage to property, productivity loss, medical costs, and lowered quality of life.

Google’s bold claim is that its technology can save nearly 30,000 lives per year in the United States, prevent almost 2 million injuries and reduce costs from traffic accidents by $400 billion per year. The claim may seem extravagant, but it is based in the simple reality that nearly all traffic accidents are caused by human error. Machines do fail, but not nearly as often as humans do.

On a global scale, the potential impact on traffic safety would be even greater. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are approximately 1.2 million traffic deaths in the world each year, and nearly 50 million injuries. The problem is expected to get worse. By 2030, the WHO estimates that traffic accidents will be the fifth leading cause of death in the world, or 3.6 percent of total deaths. This would be a startling increase from 2004, when auto collisions were the ninth leading cause of deaths in the world, at 2.2 percent of the total.

The driverless car concept has implications beyond safety as well. Google claims that its technology can also reduce wasted time during commutes by allowing cars to drive faster and closer together, relieving traffic jams. According to one study, traffic jams waste 1.9 billion gallons of gas and 4.8 billion hours of drivers’ time each year. In monetary terms, that amounts to $101 billion in gasoline costs and loss of productivity.

In addition, driverless cars could theoretically reduce the number of cars needed in a community, as sharing of vehicles would become more efficient. After all, most people only use their vehicle at certain times during the day, leaving most cars unused about 95 percent of the time. The technology could have a positive impact on reducing pollution, and developing countries may be able to reduce vehicle-intensive development if fewer cars are needed.

Bob Briskman is a car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call  1.877.595.4878  or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently issued a recommendation that the federal government require auto manufacturers to include the latest crash-avoidance technologies as standard equipment on all new automobiles, saying such a policy could cut in half the rate of fatal crashes on American roads.

The recommended technologies include collision detection systems, adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning systems, and electronic stability control. Each feature is already available on some cars and trucks, but some are limited mainly to luxury vehicles. The NTSB said they should be mandated on all vehicles, despite concerns from auto industry representatives about the effect such a requirement would have on the cost of new cars.

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should establish performance standards where still needed and mandate that these technologies be included as standard equipment in cars and commercial motor vehicles alike,” the NTSB said in a statement. “Their full life-saving and crash-avoidance potential will not be realized until supported by federal rule making and related standards.”

Electronic stability control selectively applies braking power to individual wheels when other wheels lose traction. Federal law already requires it in new passenger vehicles under 10,000 pounds.

Lane departure warning systems monitor the car’s position on the road. When the car drifts out of its lane without signaling, the system responds with audible and visible warnings.

Forward collision detection, automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control are interrelated. Sensors in the front of a vehicle detect the proximity of cars, people, and other objects in the vehicle’s path. Adaptive cruise control enables the car to automatically apply at least a portion of available braking power when traffic ahead slows and return to the set speed when traffic speeds up. Collision detection alerts the driver when the car is approaching something too quickly. Automatic braking allows the car to autonomously apply as much braking power as possible to avoid a collision with whatever lies in its path.

The NTSB also recommended mandates for tire-pressure monitoring systems and, for commercial trucks, speed-limiting systems.

Automakers are wary of the costs that would be added to all new vehicles should such safety features be mandated. Collision warning systems without automatic braking cost $1,000 to $3,000 per vehicle, according to government estimates, and those that include automatic braking cost about $3,500.

“In this still-fragile economy, maintaining affordability of new vehicles remains a concern,” said Gloria Vergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. “Today, the average price of a new vehicle is $30,000, more than half the median income in the U.S.”

But safety advocates pointed out that the per-vehicle cost of these safety features would decline if they were standard equipment on all cars.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Federal authorities filed suit against Dr. Michael J. Reinstein, a Chicago psychiatrist, on November 15, alleging that in exchange for kickbacks from drug companies, he prescribed a potentially dangerous psychotropic drug to thousands of Chicago-area nursing home patients with mental illnesses.

In a statement, acting U.S. Attorney Gary Shapiro said the lawsuit is “the largest civil case alleging prescription medication fraud against an individual ever brought in Chicago.”

In a 2009 joint investigation, the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica found that Reinstein relied very heavily on clozapine, a risky and powerful psychotropic drug. In 2007, Reinstein prescribed the medicine more than all the doctors in Texas combined, according to the investigation.

The lawsuit, filed recently in U.S. District Court in Chicago, alleges that Reinstein made no less than 140,000 false Medicare and Medicaid claims for antipsychotic drugs he had prescribed based on kickbacks from the manufacturers of the drugs, without regard to his patients’ needs.

Authorities further allege that he submitted at least 50,000 Medicare and Medicaid claims falsely stating that he had monitored his patients at Chicago-area nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

Authorities are seeking triple damages under the False Claims Act, in addition to civil penalties for every alleged false claim. The total damages could quickly reach seven or even eight figures.

Novartis, the maker of Clozaril, a brand name for clozapine, had a longstanding agreement with Reinstein to pay him to promote the drug, according to authorities.

The lawsuit described Clozaril as a “drug of last resort” and claims that despite this fact Reinstein routinely had thousands of patients taking clozapine at any given time.

In 1998, the patent on Clozaril expired, and generic versions of clozapine hit the market. But Reinstein “resisted pharmacy and drug company efforts to switch his patients to generic clozapine and continued to be the largest prescriber of Novartis’s Clozaril to Medicaid recipients in the United States,” according to the lawsuit.

In the summer of 2003, Novartis stopped paying Reinstein to promote Clozaril. At that time, Florida-based IVAX Pharmaceuticals Inc. tried to persuade Reinstein to switch to the firm’s generic form of clozapine.

Reinstein agreed, and for the next several years, IVAX paid him $50,000 per year under a “consulting agreement,” the suit alleged.

“After reaching this kickback agreement with IVAX, Reinstein immediately began switching his patients from Clozaril to IVAX’s clozapine,” the suit said. He soon became “the largest prescriber of generic clozapine in the United States.”

The lawsuit alleged that IVAX and its eventual parent company, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, paid for at least three trips to Miami for Reinstein and several associates, including hotel, airfare, cruises, and dinners.

After the 2009 publication of the Tribune-ProPublica investigation into Reinstein, he told Teva to stop paying him, the suit says.

A spokeswoman for Teva released a statement saying the company was cooperating with investigators.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The difference between average compensation levels for the two groups was approximately $6,000.

The researchers cross-referenced medical records from the Illinois Department of Public Health and data from the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission. They evaluated 1,039 cases occurring between 2000 and 2005.

In order to accurately compare settlements with respect to a single variable—race—researchers had to control for other variables that are known to influence the amount awarded in workers’ compensation claims. These include wage rates, the severity and type of injuries, length of disability, percentage of partial permanent disability, and whether the claimant was represented by an attorney. After adjusting data to account for these factors, researchers found a significantly higher average settlement amount for white workers.

The study was purely statistical, and an examination of possible causes of the disparity was outside its scope. Still, the lead author offered two possible explanations.

“It’s really not clear why this is happening. One explanation is that there is some systemic bias or prejudices occurring within the system,” said Lee Friedman, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at UIC. “Or, it could be that the level of information and knowledge about how the system works — and what can actually be litigated, disputed, or requested for compensation — might vary by ethnic group.”

Friedman also speculated that the average white worker may tend to take more time off for a given injury than the average black or Hispanic worker with a similar injury, which would result in greater compensation for lost wages.

Friedman also commented on the 2011 overhaul to the state’s workers’ compensation laws.

“With the new law… there was a lot of house cleaning that occurred within the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission,” he said. “They’ve hired a whole new staff. It might have a very important effect on the potential disparities that are occurring between workers based on ethnicity.”

The study was published in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, based in Silver Spring, Md., in cooperation with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, funded the study through a grant to the UIC School of Public Health.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

New England Compounding Center (NECC), the drug compounding pharmacy that produced and sold the tainted shots, already faces numerous lawsuits. But the company is fairly small, and those infected with meningitis are now suing larger targets.

In New Jersey, two doctors and orthopedic clinics that provided the steroid injections have been sued. Legal experts predict more cases will follow in that state and others.

If courts define the injections as products, doctors and clinics could be sued for product liability. But if the administration of the injections is deemed to be a service, plaintiffs would likely have to prove negligence under medical malpractice laws—a much more difficult task.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers may look to clients’ medical bills to determine whether they have a case under strict product liability laws. If a bill lists the steroid and its administration as separate line items, an argument can be made that the drug was a product sold. This argument would be less sound if patients were billed only for the injection.

In some states, doctors cannot be sued under strict liability standards. In others, caps are imposed on damages for such claims. NECC’s tainted injections have infected patients in 19 states. Because laws vary across those states, the outcomes of lawsuits against doctors and clinics are likely to vary as well. Some plaintiffs may even file claims both for malpractice and for product liability in the hopes that at least one holds up.

Distributors of NECC’s products may also find themselves named in lawsuits.

Another possible target is the State of Massachusetts, which regulates drug compounders like NECC within the state, but legal experts say the legal standards necessary to sue the state are difficult to meet.

The federal government will likely not face any lawsuits. The agency is under scrutiny because it had cited NECC for regulatory violations as recently as 2006, but the FDA’s authority to regulate drug compounders is quite limited.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The term “damages” simply refers to the loss the injury has caused you. Damages can include, among other things, financial harm in the form of lost wages and medical bills and intangible harm such as pain and suffering. A lawsuit determines what compensation you are owed because of the economic, physical or mental harm you have suffered.

In a personal injury lawsuit, the injured person is the plaintiff, who files suit against the person or company that is legally responsible for the injury (i.e., the defendant or an insurance company). During the discovery process, both sides learn what evidence may be presented to a judge or jury. The vast majority of cases are resolved by a negotiated settlement, but it is sometimes necessary to take a case to trial. In either case, the amount of the settlement or verdict depends on a number of factors.

The primary category of damages in a personal injury lawsuit is compensatory damages, which are intended to make the plaintiff whole by providing monetary compensation for an injury. Some damages, such as medical expenses or property damage, are fairly simple to calculate. But other damages, such as pain and suffering, are not as easy to determine. Compensatory damages can also include loss of income, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment. When the spouse of the injured person is a plaintiff, damages can include loss of consortium.

Monetary awards in a personal injury lawsuit can also include punitive damages, which are awarded when the defendant’s behavior is judged to be not merely negligent but particularly egregious or reckless. The purpose of punitive damages is to punish the defendant and deter such conduct by others.

Damages may be reduced based on the plaintiff’s conduct. The State of Illinois is a modified comparative negligence jurisdiction. Comparative negligence refers to situations when the plaintiff shares fault for an injury, for instance when two drivers each make errors that contribute to a collision. Under the law of modified comparative negligence, an injured party can only be compensated if he or she is less than 50 percent responsible for the injury, and the amount of damages that can be awarded are determined by the percentage that each party contributed to the injury.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com.

The states vary in the restrictions they place on drivers’ cell phone use, with some prohibiting any use of handheld devices while driving and others having no restrictions. In Illinois, cell phone use is prohibited in construction areas and school zones, and drivers under the age of 19 may not use their phones while on the road. Commercial drivers may not use handheld devices while driving. The City of Chicago and some other municipalities have banned the use of handheld devices while driving.

As governments have moved to restrict cell phone use, automakers have been introducing technology that connects electronic devices with the automobile, so that the car can alert the driver to incoming calls or read text messages aloud. Ford’s approach is based on the idea that some situations are particularly dangerous.

Ford’s biometric steering wheel measures the driver’s heart rate, using the same technology found in gym equipment. Infrared sensors measure the driver’s body temperature, and the seat belt contains a piezoelectric sensor to detect the driver’s rate of breathing.

The new technology also measures traffic flow around the vehicle, using tools already available on current vehicles. There is a front-facing camera that measures traffic density in the lanes ahead and a blind spot detection device that uses sonar.

Another set of sensors measures the controls of the automobile itself: speed, acceleration, braking activity and steering wheel position. Lateral acceleration and yaw rate (changing lanes and turning corners) are also measured.

The combination of sensors is used to determine whether a particular driving situation requires the motorist’s full attention. The technology can then temporarily disable access to the driver’s handheld device. The system will use an algorithm to determine whether the combination of traffic conditions and the driver’s stress level indicates that a distraction may be particularly dangerous at that moment.

The new technology builds on Ford’s existing MyKey system, developed for younger drivers. MyKey allows parents to program a vehicle to block text messages and phone calls while the car is in motion and limit the car’s top speed and top radio volume. In addition, if the front seat passengers don’t buckle their safety belts, the audio system is muted.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Birth injury symptoms often do not appear in the delivery room and sometimes they do not show up for weeks or months. Late-showing symptoms include delays in reaching milestones of child development like sitting up, standing and walking.

Spotting birth injury symptoms often is a result of knowing what is not happening in the child’s development. Each developmental stage has its own milestones that a growing baby should be meeting for movement, visual cues, and hearing.

A one-month old should be able to bring its hands up to its mouth, for example, and turn toward familiar sounds and voices. A three-month-old, on the other hand, should be able to follow moving objects with its eyes and support its upper-body with its arms when lying on its stomach. There are more milestones for seven-month old children and still more for children at 12 months. Keeping an eye on where children are in their movement, visual and hearing milestones can be an important part of understanding whether a child may have a birth injury.

The next step is to understand the causes of birth injury. There are many natural movements that happen in a woman’s body when she delivers a baby and occasionally the contortions and contractions can be hard on an infant. Other times an infant can be injured during birth because of an error or negligence by the doctor, nurse or midwife in charge.

There are several factors that can potentially contribute to an injury to the infant in the delivery room:
• Negligence or improper care
• Lack of oxygen to a baby’s brain during delivery or labor
• Baby’s shoulders get stuck behind mother’s pubic bone and proper techniques are not used during delivery to free the shoulder
• High birth weight babies can be injured during a vaginal birth
• A fetus with a large head can prolong delivery
• Exposure to dangerous birthplace chemicals
• Incorrect use of surgical instruments
• Baby presents in a way other than headfirst

Any of these problems can occur in a delivery room. Oftentimes a parent will not even know that anything went wrong during the delivery. Since it may be months before the baby shows any symptoms, parents need to get legal advice when they are concerned about birth injuries

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit BriskmanandBriskman.com/.

But when employees try to use those smartphones while driving for their jobs, it becomes a safety issue both for the employee and for the public.

That’s why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is launching a new initiative aimed at stopping workers from texting while driving for work.

OSHA can claim great strides in worker safety over the years. It is a sign of how safe the workplace is becoming that motor vehicle collisions have become the leading cause of death in the American workforce. Distracted driving is part of the reason OSHA has been unable to bring down the numbers of workers killed and injured at work while in the car.

Many industries require some amount of driving for work. Sales representatives have to get out there and chase down leads. Caterers put employees in vans to deliver food across town or across the state. Photographers need to be on the scene for photo shoots and large animal veterinarians have to visit barns throughout their territory. Whether an employee is being paid for mileage while driving for work does not make a difference. If they are doing something work related and using their car to get it done, then it is work.

OSHA is asking all employers to crack down on assignments that require or even encourage employees to text while driving. That means not sending texts to employees while they are driving and ensuring that texting from the road is not a necessary part of the job.

Employers will face more tort claims and worker compensation costs as texting while driving becomes an accepted part of business. OSHA is trying to educate industries to make sure they are aware that they are responsible if their employees feel they have to engage in this dangerous behavior to keep up in their job.

“We want to send a clear message to managers, supervisors and workers that their company must neither require nor condone sending or reading text or e-mail messages while driving,” wrote Dr. David Michaels in his OSHA blog in October.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit BriskmanandBriskman.

Highway safety advocates got together about seven years ago to devise a plan to attack speeding and lower the injury and death rates from high-speed crashes. In the ensuing time, seven states raised their speed limits while only two increased speeding fines, according to USA Today.

The progress made in attempting to cut down on speeding in the United States has stalled, as other issues like distracted driving have taken a more prominent role among activists.

Progress has been made in other safety-related areas. There has been a 23 percent drop in deaths related to the non-use of seat belts since 2000. Drunk-driving related deaths have dropped about 3 percent in that same time period.

In fact, highway deaths were down about 3 percent in 2010 from 2009, even as the number of miles driven ticked up almost 1 percent. But speed-related deaths have gone up about 7 percent since 2000.

The fatality rate on American highways fell in 2010 to the lowest point since the government started tracking the data in the 1940s. The rate is calculated as deaths per 100 million miles driven. In 2010, the number dropped to 1.09 from 1.13 the year before.

“Last year’s drop in traffic fatalities is welcome news, and it proves that we can make a difference,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Still, too many of our friends and neighbors are killed in preventable roadway tragedies every day. We will continue doing everything possible to make cars safer, increase seat belt use, put a stop to drunk driving and distracted driving and encourage drivers to put safety first.”

By failing to mention speeding as a major factor in highway fatalities, LaHood underscores the frustration advocates face in trying to draw attention to the issue.

Groups that advocated for raising the speed limit in 1995 point to statistics showing that overall deaths have fallen dramatically since the federal government repealed the limit.

“The bottom line is that the roads have never been safer,” said John Bowman with the National Motorists Association, which lobbied for the repeal of the national speed limit. “Traffic fatality rates have been steadily dropping since 1995…They’ve been steadily decreasing, and that’s with higher speed.”

Speed limits should be set by state highway engineers and local public works directors, Bowman said. He also noted that aggressive driving should be more of a focus than simply speeding.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

A recent study showed that barely half of the recommended services get performed as prescribed because there just is not enough time in the day.

The preventative services include screenings, tests and conversations that are done at a certain time in the patient’s life. A 42-year-old woman will have a different list of preventative services than an 80-year-old man, for example. On average there are fewer than six services, such as screenings and counseling per patient, but they are not all done – not by a long shot.

As few as 12 percent of the patients received all of the services that they should have expected for prevention, according to the study.

During a study, researchers listened in on almost 300 visits to family physicians and general internists over the course of about three years. They learned that patients receive only about half of the preventative services.

“If you put it into context and you think about how little the incentives and the structure of the U.S. health system support prevention, it’s probably a pretty good rate,” said Jennifer Elston Lafata, the co-leader of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. “You have to remember that a 100 percent rate is likely not feasible or even desirable, once you consider patient preferences and medical needs.”

If another medical concern pops up during a routine physical exam, it is naturally going to take precedence over a checklist because it is an immediate need. Then, time constraints kick in and the physician and the patient rarely catch up to get to everything on the list, Lafata said.

The study included patients from age 50 to 80. A full 93 percent of patients who were due for a colorectal cancer screening were given one, making it the most consistent of the preventative services. Counseling about aspirin use was the conversation that most often fell between the cracks. Those talks happened only about 18 percent of the time.

The doctor visits in the study tended to last less than a half hour. The visits that lasted longer tended to be more comprehensive.

Preventative care breaks down into three basic categories: counseling, screenings and immunizations. Screenings happened about 74 percent of the time in the study. Counseling happened about 45 percent of the time and immunizations happened only about 34 percent of the time, according to the study. If all preventative care is not addressed during annual physicals, many serious and oftentimes life-threatening conditions, can go undetected.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

A bipartisan group of House members recently passed an amendment to H.R. 7 that will cut restrict the ability of trucking companies to fill the highways with heavier and more dangerous trucks.

The amendment also struck a provision in the bill called the “state option” that would have allowed states to individually increase the weight limit for trucks by 17,000 pounds from 80,000 to 97,000. Opponents of the state option argued that each state legislature would be intimidated into signing the increase for fear of being seen as anti-business.

Statistics show that the heavier the trucks get, the less safe the roads become. Even though highway crash fatalities fell in 2010 to their lowest numbers since the 1940s, truck crash fatalities jumped 8.7 percent. In 2010, there were 3,675 people killed in accidents involving trucks – up from 3,380 in 2009. In 2007, 802 truck drivers lost their life while performing their job. That made the trucking and transportation industry among the most dangerous in the country, according to the Truck Safety Coalition.

The coalition argues that truck drivers are asked to meet demanding schedules often without enough rest or time at home. The U.S. Department of Transportation recently revised rules about truck drivers and the amount of rest they receive to ensure that commercial drivers are safe on the roads.

The new hours-of-service rules reduce the total amount a driver is allowed to work in a seven-day period from 82 hours down to 70 hours. There are also new provisions requiring drivers to rest more at night when the body’s natural instinct is to sleep. The new hours-of-service rules will be enforced by fines to the truck drivers and the companies that hire them.

Trucking lobbyists are pushing for longer combination vehicles like triple-trailer trucks that could get more than 100 feet long and potentially weigh more than 100,000 pounds. There are also proposals for trucks called turnpike doubles that can get up to 120-feet long and weigh more than 135,000 pounds.

Double trailer trucks are significantly more likely to be involved in fatal highway crashes than traditional single-trailer trucks, according to the Truck Safety Coalition. The risk goes up 200 percent for highway crashes and it goes up 32 percent for highway fatalities when an additional trailer is tacked to the back of the first trailer.

Statistics from the Truck Safety Coalition indicate that trucks weighing 80,000 pounds get into fatal crashes about twice as often as those weighing only 50,000 pounds.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

An 80-year-old dementia patient at an Oak Park, Ill., nursing home was beaten to death in February by a fellow resident 14 years his junior. Recently released documents from the Illinois Department of Public Health show that despite evidence of aggressive behavior from both men, nothing was written in the patients’ treatment plan to show how to handle the men.

The victim’s family filed a lawsuit against Oak Park Medical Center for wrongful death for failing to supervise a patient that posed an immediate threat to Anibal Calderon. The OPMC’s parent company agreed to correct deficiencies outlined by the IDPH report but has not accepted responsibility for the attack, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The family claims in the lawsuit that Oak Park Healthcare Center broke state and federal nursing home rules and did not protect their patient from neglect and abuse, according to the Sun-Times. The suit also claims that the business failed to hire adequate staffing to sufficiently monitor its patients. Finally, the suit claims the facility did not report suspicious behavior and ignored complaints about residents.

The case at Oak Park shines a light on a broader issue about how many nurses are needed to care for the residents and how many of those nurses need to be trained registered nurses as opposed to certified nursing assistants or licensed practical nurses. A 2010 nursing home reform law mandates increased staffing.

The challenge, predictably, is that RNs are more experienced and demand higher salaries. More RNs means less revenue. Illinois state government officials are working this spring to push for more RNs who should be better equipped to ascertain changes in patient behavior like that of the man who is accused of killing Anibal Calderon.

The new Illinois laws require more than an hour more per day per resident of nursing and personal care in the next two years.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Drunk driving deaths have declined every year since a high in 2005 of 13,582, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Total traffic deaths also are down during the same period.

Yet, there still is a traffic fatality in the United States every 51 minutes that is caused by alcohol impairment, according to the study by the Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Traffic fatalities are only one of the ways alcohol-related dangers can be tracked. There were about 1.5 million arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That means about one arrest for every 141 licensed drivers in 2008, which is the most recent year for which data is available.

A new study from the NHTSA found that women are being arrested more often for drinking and driving, and the numbers of women who cause accidents because of alcohol consumption is not decreasing like it is in the general population in many states. The number of women who were arrested for drinking and driving went up about 30 percent from 1998 to 2007, according to the FBI. During that same period, arrests for men went down by about 7.5 percent.

During the first part of this year, new court decisions expanded liability for accidents involving alcohol.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court found that a social host can be held liable if someone served at a party injured someone off-premises while driving drunk. The court also ruled that hosts cannot be held responsible for alcohol related crashes if they did not supply the alcohol at the party. So, if the party was a “bring your own” gathering, then the party host is not held responsible.

Apart from the statistics that show the dangers of drinking while operating a motor vehicle, there are other significant health risks to be aware of during Alcohol Awareness Month. Alcohol is a factor in more than half of the drownings, homicides and fatal burn injuries. Birth defects also are a well-documented result of alcohol use during pregnancy.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children recently announced that there is cause enough to get CCCHD screenings for newborns, which is a severe type of heart defect that is life-threatening.

The Health and Human Services Department now recommends adding CCCHD to the newborn screening panel, according to a release from the Health Resources & Services Administration. The recommendation is supported by a variety of groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Heart Foundation.

The Secretary’s Advisory Committee added the screening recommendation, but also noted that more research needs to take place quickly to ensure the whole process is working correctly. This means the National Institutes of Health will now research the entire screening process. The Health Resources and Services Administration will look closely at standards, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will look at outcomes after completing its study, according to a release from HRSA.

Missed or even delayed diagnosis of CCCHD can result in injury or infant death. The newborn injuries can include morbidity or injury to vital organs that can be permanent.

The existing CCHD detection approach of ultrasounds and physical exams in the nursery have failed to identify enough cases of the heart disease, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ website. Studies have shown that pulse oximetry ¨C a painless, non-invasive technology ¨C is universally available to add to newborn assessments.

The motion-sensitive pulse oximeters come in both disposable and reusable varieties, and both options are acceptable detection devices, according to the Pediatrics website. To reduce the number of false-positive results, Pediatrics recommends that screening occurs more than 24 hours after the birth or as close to the time of discharge from the hospital as possible.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced that CCCHD will be added to the recommended uniform screening panel in September. It is up to each state to determine how to incorporate the new screenings into their own programs, according to the Pediatrics website.

The HRSA has pledged to develop training and educational materials for parents and relevant health care professionals. Public health and professional health care organizations will help the development, but it will be funded by the HRSA.

If a medical professional fails to order a critical test that leads to a birth injury or fails to diagnose a heart problem that needs immediate care, the family has the right to seek compensation for additional health care costs and pain and suffering caused from the missed diagnosis.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

By helping employers find creative ways to bring injured employees back into the workforce, JAN saves companies money while helping employees get back to full salaries, according to the network’s website.

The group has consultants who help companies comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act among other laws. JAN also offers self-employment and entrepreneurship resources for people with disabilities.

About 80 percent of the requests JAN receives are from companies looking to retain a current employee after that worker’s ability level has changed because of an accident or illness.

In a recent blog post in the JAN quarterly online newsletter, a case study outlined the obstacles that can make re-entry into a workplace a daunting challenge. In the case study, a man tore his knee at work as an equipment mechanic. When his knee healed he came back to work, but quickly re-injured it. Because his job required him to squat frequently and maneuver around equipment, he was never going to be able to perform his job in the same way as prior to his injury. The company told him to go home and wait for them to figure something out for him (at reduced wages).

The man feared he would never make a living again doing his old job, but he got a call a few days later to find that the company had found a $2,667 hydraulic lift that allowed the man (and his coworkers) to work on the equipment at waist level. This meant that he would be able to continue to earn a living at his previous salary and his coworkers would potentially avoid injuries as well.

JAN applauded the company’s team collaboration. The nonprofit specializes in helping both individuals and companies – from industrial manufacturers to professional services.

Employees who are injured on the job have the right to be compensated for their lost wages, health care and rehabilitation, and the permanent disability caused by their injury. Those employees also have a right to expect their company will make every reasonable effort to accommodate their changed ability status when they come back to work.

That accommodation can come in the form of changing a work site to make it more accessible to the employee. It also can be vocational in nature, helping an employee learn a new skill to match their new physical ability level.

An experienced worker’s compensation attorney can help employees who have been injured on the job to get back to work at the same salary level or better than they had when they were originally injured.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has been leading campaigns since 2007 to improve driver behavior and increase safety on the roads, according to a CVSA press release.

CVSA statistics have shown that some demographics are far less careful when driving around commercial vehicles. Accordingly, some campaigns to increase highway safety have been targeted to those groups. The Teens & Trucks Program helps educate young drivers about safe driving practices near commercial vehicles. This campaign has had a significant effect on fatality statistics in the 16- to 20-year-old group.

Using statistics gathered from 2006 to 2010, fatalities from highway crashes fell most sharply among young drivers. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows an almost 40 percent drop in the number of fatalities for young drivers and a drop of only about 23 percent in overall fatalities, according to the release.

While some campaigns have focused on teaching better driving habits to teenagers, other campaigns have aimed at educating the general public about the dangers of using technology while driving.

Last year, the CVSA began targeting its Defeating Distracted Drivers campaign to a commercial driver audience. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute did a study of commercial drivers and found that texting is a significant distraction in truck cabs. The study indicated that texting makes truck drivers 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash or a near crash, according to the CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver website.

For four years, the Operation Safe Driver campaign has been collecting data at roadside inspections. In 2011, the roadside inspections led to about 4.7 percent of drivers being placed out of service. This was a decrease of more than a half percent from the year before. Similarly, about 24.6 percent of the inspections led to vehicles being removed from service. That number was down from 27.4 percent the year before.

Removing unsafe drivers and unsafe vehicles is a priority of the CVSA. “Campaigns that target and remove unsafe drivers from the road, like CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver, are yielding positive results,” said the group’s executive director, Stephen A. Keppler. “CVSA will continue to educate the driving public ¨C
and especially teens ¨C about the risks they take when speeding and cutting off vehicles.”

Efforts to reduce the number of crash-related deaths and injuries have grown stronger recently. An experienced attorney can help crash victims seek compensation for health care costs, pain and suffering and even lost wages.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The study involved surveying about 1,800 physicians from across the country in a variety of practice areas and specialties. Researchers found that 20 percent of these physicians had not revealed a medical error in the past year because they were concerned about being sued. An even larger group ¨C about 35 percent ¨Creported that they did not “completely agree” if they should disclose medical errors considered serious to their patients, according to the Huffington Post.

More than a third of the surveyed physicians did not “completely agree” that they needed to disclose a financial relationship with a drug company or a medical device company. Alarmingly, more than half of the respondents said they had described a prognosis in a more positive light than was warranted, according to Fox Business online. More than 10 percent of the surveyed physicians admitted they had told a patient an untruth in the past 12 months.

The study aimed to reveal physicians’ attitudes about communications with patients. According to the Charter on Medical Professionalism, communication is among the three principles that guide physicians. The study relies on the charter’s communication claims as a guide for pursuing more data about how physicians communicate with patients and their families. General surgeons were more likely than their physician counterparts to agree that medical errors needed to be revealed to patients. The study also found that about 25 percent of physicians admitted that they had revealed unauthorized information about a patient.

There are many reasons that physicians feel the need to bend the truth, according to the study’s author, Dr. Lisa I. Iezzoni, who is the director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Morgan Institute for Health Policy.

A bad prognosis can be difficult to give especially if the physician and patient have a history together, Iezzoni said. Some doctors give a rosier prognosis than is warranted because it is less stressful for the patient, but that is not in the best interest of the patient, she said. Hiding medical errors might be more justifiable in terms of reducing patient stress, Iezzoni said. She emphasized that patients with more information will be able to better understand their condition and how to confront it.

The Physician Payment Sunshine Act of 2009 will require companies to disclose payments to physicians of more than $10. This law goes into effect in 2013. The study points out that once this law goes into effect, patients will want to have more conversations about the relationships their physicians have with drug companies and medical device companies, according to Fox Business.

Patients who suffered because they made medical decisions based on bad information from physicians who were trying to “protect” them from the truth have the right to consider seeking a claim. An experienced medical malpractice lawyer can advise patients on how best to proceed against a physician who was not honest about a diagnosis.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The new hours-of-service (HOS) rule is aimed at preventing highway accidents by reducing work fatigue among commercial truck drivers. The rule ought to save lives by changing the work environment into one where commercial drivers are more rested and alert, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The HOS final rule cuts the total number of hours that a commercial truck driver is allowed to work in a seven-day period by 12 hours ¨C from 82 to 70 hours. Drivers who maximize this 70-hour workweek must include at least two nights of rest during the 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. period when the body’s internal clock needs sleep the most, according to the release.

Once during a seven-day workweek, a driver may exercise a 34-hour restart provision. That means if a driver takes a 34-hour break, then he or she can restart the clock on the seven-day workweek.

The rule goes on to dictate that all drivers must take at least a half-hour break for every eight hours of driving time. That break can happen at any time during the eight-hour shift. Professional truck drivers are allowed to continue with the existing 11-hour workday limit that has been the industry maximum under the previous rule.

Heavy fines will be imposed on violators. Trucking companies caught allowing drivers to break the 11-hour-per-day driving limit by more than three hours will be fined $11,000 per offense. Drivers that break this rule can face penalties of as much as $2,750 per offense. The new rule goes into effect July 1, 2013. The DOT expects the new rule will cut down on the number of injuries from truck-related accidents especially in the middle of the night.

A recent highway crash on I-57 in Illinois highlights the dangers created when professional drivers work through the night. At 4:06 a.m., a commercial driver hauling a trailer full of produce rolled the truck over, blocking the Interstate and forcing officials to close the road for four hours during clean up. No one was seriously injured in the wreck and icy conditions played a role in the crash, but the DOT showed its concern about commercial drivers working at that hour with the new rule.

Truck accidents like the one on an icy I-57 at 4:06 in the morning often severely injure or kill the commercial driver operating the truck or other drivers on the road. Professional drivers or other victims of highway truck accidents have a right to be compensated for injuries caused by the negligence of another driver.

In addition to medical bills, accident victims have a right to pursue compensation for pain and suffering and lost wages that are a direct result of the accident.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The complaint accuses the Granite City nursing home of failing to properly care for Bonner Sr. by allowing him to fall multiple times. Meredith Bonner is the executor of Bonner Sr.’s estate and she filed the wrongful death lawsuit. She claims the staff was made aware of Bonner Sr.’s falling issues since he sustained brain trauma in a fall. Following his initial injury, Bonner Sr. fell frequently.

In the claim, Meredith Bonner asserts that the staff and management at the nursing home knew Bonner Sr. had a high likelihood of falling again, but did not provide him proper assistance and supervision. As a result, Bonner Sr. fell repeatedly while at the nursing home, according to the complaint. In July of 2010, just six months after arriving at Granite Nursing Home, Bonner Sr. suffered a severe head injury in a fall and was taken to Gateway Regional Medical Center.

Blunt force trauma to Bonner Sr.’s head while in the care of the nursing home led to swelling and bleeding in his brain, according to the complaint. He died in the hospital in early August. Meredith Bonner asserts in the complaint that it was the nursing home’s carelessness and negligence that led to Bonner Sr.’s death.

She claims the nursing home did not keep close enough watch on Bonner Sr. and failed to notice his injuries or treat them in a timely manner. Meredith Bonner expected more from the Granite City Nursing Home. She expected the staff would listen to her family as they explained Bonner Sr.’s abilities and challenges. She expected the staff to do their own analysis of Bonner Sr.’s needs and then meet those needs. She expected the home to care for Bonner Sr. and instead she claims their negligence led to his death.

Medical and legal professionals suggest thoroughly understanding what the nursing home offers and to set expectations in writing. Different elder care companies offer various levels of health care and observation of clients. Families leaving loved ones in the care of a professional elder care home need to understand the nursing home option they have chosen and what it offers.

Families with loved ones who have been injured or neglected have a right to seek compensation for health care costs and lost wages because of time spent addressing the home’s neglect.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The toolkit is designed to help engage patients, community and staff at every level in patient safety. The NPSF encourages health care providers to prominently display the program materials and the campaign logo. The group provides educational resources to the staff of the hospital or health center. Health care professionals also can customize a Patient Safety Awareness Toolkit to better meet specific organizational needs.

The National Patient Safety Foundation has led and promoted the safety awareness week activities since 2002. A variety of efforts are being made in the United States and abroad to improve patient safety, including campaigns to prevent wrong side surgeries and other medical errors.

The NPSF also is promoting the Universal Patient Compact, which creates a framework for effective partnerships between patients and providers. The compact encourages providers to include the patients and families on the health care team.

Promoters hope Be Aware for Safe Care resonates with everyone in the health care process from the patients and their families to the staff of the medical center to the health care professionals attending to the patients. The theme for 2011’s Patient Safety Awareness Week was “Commit to Safe Health Care.” That campaign encouraged everyone in the health care industry to stay involved, informed and invested in every patient’s care.

Studies have shown that medical record documentation is the largest contributor to patient risk. There are campaigns under way to standardize medical record keeping to make it easier for caregivers to find patient allergies marked in different places in the records or ensure consistent dosing information.

Patient Safety Awareness Week has become a tradition in many hospitals and medical centers. The annual event is an opportunity for administrators to refocus caregivers, patients and families on the importance of safety and communication in the health care industry.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

According to GBS International, a group that promotes awareness of Group B Strep, the condition is the most likely cause of infections in newborns.

GBS does not infect every newborn that is exposed and women who carry the bacteria do not carry it consistently. Babies are most likely to become infected with the bacteria as they pass through the birth canal.

GBS can leave a baby with handicaps like deafness, blindness or cerebral palsy, according to GBS International.

Protecting a baby from GBS involves testing. Doctors can do a urine culture for GBS or other bacteria during the first and third trimesters. It is important for pregnant women to see a doctor immediately if they show signs of a vaginal infection. C-section babies are still at risk, according to GBS International, and IV antibiotics before the surgery can help reduce the risks of infection.

If an expectant mother tests positive for GBS during pregnancy, she should be given IV antibiotics for as long as four hours. In half of GBS infection cases, the mother showed no signs of risk factors, according to the Canadian Pediatric Society. This is why testing is an important step during pregnancy.

Symptoms of GBS include vaginal irritation or burning. The bacteria is also likely to give women bladder infections.

Pregnant women in the United States and Canada are tested as a standard of care. Even if a woman tests negative during a pregnancy, GBS International suggests being retested during the third trimester and again for each subsequent pregnancy. In a baby, GBS causes blood infections, sepsis, lung infections or infections in the fluid or the lining around the brain.

In order to reduce the risks to the unborn baby, a mother who has GBS should be given four hours of IV antibiotics before the baby is born. If the baby comes sooner than that, the hospital should observe the baby for 48 hours, according to GBS International. Breastfeeding also may supply a baby the needed antibodies to fight an infection. Everyone in the delivery room should wash their hands immediately before handling the baby, especially when the mother tested positive for GBS.

Most importantly, ask the doctor what needs to be done during every step of pregnancy and delivery if a mother has GBS. Parents of children who have tested positive for GBS should contact a medical malpractice attorney to understand their rights.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The logistics company was in violation for improperly training workers who drive forklifts and not having adequate eyewash stations for employees who could be exposed to chemicals, according to an OSHA press release.

“Deficient forklifts and improperly handled chemicals can lead to serious injuries or death,” said Diane Turek, director of OSHA’s Chicago North office, in the press release.

CTI was cited for four repeat violations totaling fines of $132,000. The company was found to have allowed forklift operators to use equipment that stayed in service even though they had been noted to be deficient.

The company was cited for eight other serious violations with fines of $30,800. Those violations included illegible forklift name plates, unlabeled hazardous materials, and improper training on handling chemicals. A serious violation is one where there is a probability of physical harm or death because of the hazard.

Central Transport also was cited for five violations deemed “other than serious” that totaled fines of another $2,000.

Illinois’ Legislature passed a bill last year that changed the way the state handles workers’ compensation claims. One of the biggest changes has to do with which doctors can be used to determine the nature and severity of an injury. The new law may require an injured worker to pick a doctor from within a preferred provider network.

The state’s new law slices medical fees to hospitals and doctors by 30 percent in hopes of saving about $700 million a year, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Other cost-saving measures include reducing the number of weeks a worker with carpel tunnel syndrome can receive benefits from 40 down to 28.5. Carpel tunnel is a repetitive stress injury that can limit the use of one or both hands. Benefits also are capped at a 15 percent loss for carpel tunnel cases.

The new law also cuts off wage differential, which used to be available over your lifetime. Wage differential is the difference between what you could make before the injury and what you can make after the injury. This is now cut off at 67 years old or five years after the injury, whichever comes later.

The new law does not address causation, or the degree to which an injury was caused by working for the employer. The law did, however, adopt AMA guidelines for determining the degree of injury.

A qualified workers’ compensation attorney can help injured workers understand the complexities of the new law and how to make sure they are compensated for their injuries.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Distraction-related accidents took the lives of about 3,000 people on America’s highways last year, according to NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman.

The agency’s press release calling for the ban included examples of deadly crashes, injury accidents and near misses caused by distracted drivers, pilots and engineers.

The NTSB does not have the authority to make state law, but the agency’s recommendations can be used when legislators bring the issue up in capital buildings across the country.

For example, a motorcoach driver slammed into a low bridge in 2004 while using a hands-free device and injured 27 high school students. A commuter train conductor texting on his phone hit a freight train head on in 2008, killing 25 in California. Two airline pilots using their laptop computers were distracted and overflew their destination by 100 miles in 2009. A tugboat mate killed two tourists while he was using a laptop computer when his tug pushed a barge over their duckboat in the Delaware River in 2010.

The NTSB report outlined the different mishaps in assorted transportation types in an effort to show the many ways that portable electronic devices can distract the operator of a vehicle. The agency set the deadlines across all modes of transportation.

The Department of Transportation banned the use of smartphones by professional truck and motorcoach drivers in the fall. That rule was created by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Researchers say the statistical evidence backs up the NTSB’s recommendations. An analysis of 300 studies on mobile phones showed no evidence that people using hands-free devices were any less distracted than people holding a phone to their ear, according to the Associated Press.

American privacy laws have made it difficult for researchers to gather thorough data on motor vehicle accidents caused by cellphone distraction. Studies conducted in Australia and Canada have shown drivers are four times more likely to crash if they are talking on the phone regardless of whether it was hands-free or handheld.

A Carnegie Mellon study from 2008 also backed up claims that hands-free devices are just as dangerous as hand-held ones. That research showed it is the brain, not the hand, that is distracted. Driving while talking on the phone is distracting because the brainpower is being divided. Research done in driving simulators showed a loss of skills when drivers were subjected to voices talking to them, according to the AP. Investigators see personal electronic devices in increasing numbers of accident scenes.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The problem with surgeries was originally highlighted in 1998 by the Joint Commission, a nonprofit group that accredits health care organizations. The health care community has made many necessary fixes, but there is still a long way to go, according to Commission President Mark Chassin.

Many hospital groups across the country have been successful addressing these surgery mistakes through procedural changes, according to Hospitals and Health Networks Magazine.

A Safe Surgery Coalition in Minnesota began a campaign to eliminate surgeries performed on the wrong site in three years. In its first year, the campaign brought wrong site surgeries down from two or three a month in the state to only one per month. In Pennsylvania, one group of hospitals reduced its wrong site surgery numbers from an average of 15 a year down to only four.

These positive changes are the result of disciplined work, according to the magazine. Hospital groups unwilling to put in the effort still have unacceptable rates of surgery site mistakes. The causes of wrong site surgeries can be complicated to solve. Errors usually happen because of miscommunication during surgery prep, according to the magazine.

The procedural fixes that can lead to fewer or even zero wrong site surgeries are so simple, they sometimes do not get enough attention, according to Dr. Bill Berry, who is the program director of Safe Surgeries 2015, an initiative from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Wrong site surgery problems can occur in several places throughout the process including scheduling, consent forms, on-site marking and operating room time outs. The procedure that can bring about the biggest change when done correctly is known as the OR time out. A time out is the final check before the surgery begins.

The state health department in Minnesota created a process to address wrong site surgeries called the Minnesota Time Out. Researchers there found that the time outs were chaotic and rarely consistent or thorough, according to the magazine.

By creating a time out process where everyone in the room has a role and the procedure is followed every time, Minnesota has seen improvement.

Sometimes adding new processes to protect the patient can ruffle the feathers of health care professionals who are set in their ways, but that is where a hospital CEO must step in and insist that safe surgery processes be implemented and followed, according to the magazine.

Victims of wrong-site surgeries have real and long-term effects from the incorrect procedures. A medical malpractice attorney can hold the guilty party responsible while the victim recovers.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The new rule was jointly created by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. “I hope that this rule will save lives by helping commercial drivers stay laser-focused on safety at all times while behind the wheel,” said DOT Secretary Ray LaHood after the rule went into effect in November.

The new rule is simple and has financial and professional consequences. Commercial drivers are no longer allowed to use a hand-held phone of any kind while operating a bus or truck. Drivers found in violation of the restriction will be fined up to $2,750 per offense and may be disqualified from operating a commercial vehicle after multiple violations, according to the DOT. States hold the commercial driver’s licenses and will revoke them after multiple offenses.

Commercial truck or bus companies also can be fined for allowing their drivers to operate hand-held smartphones while driving. The maximum fine for companies is $11,000.

There are about four million professional commercial drivers in the United States, according to the DOT. The government got the authority to make such a rule from federal highway safety laws passed in the 1980s. The DOT used research from its own 2009 study showing the dangerous effects of distracted driving that indicated it does not take much distraction for a commercial driver to create big problems on the highway.

The study found that doing things like text messaging on a phone were more than twice as distracting as rummaging through a grocery bag or looking at a map while driving. It also showed that using a hand-held device was about five times more distracting than speaking on the phone hands-free.

As many as 500,000 people were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver in 2009, according to the DOT’s research. Another 5,474 died in distracted driving accidents in the United States that year. The DOT’s study alarmed the industry, and government agencies have been cracking down ever since. The FMCSA and the PHMSA both banned texting while driving in 2010 in hopes of cutting back on distracted driving. The new smartphone ban goes much further by banning use of all hand-held devices.

Some of the country’s largest employers of commercial drivers like Wal-Mart, UPS, Greyhound and Covenant Transport already had rules banning their drivers from using smartphones, according to the DOT’s press release.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

If physicians and medical professionals are getting the dosage wrong on Dilaudid, it might be because it is three to five times more potent than morphine. Dosing guidelines changed about eight years ago, but the drug is still being prescribed at the wrong dosage, according to Outpatient Surgery Magazine.

Pain management has become one of the more challenging aspects of the medical field and getting it wrong can create a host of new problems. “Overdosing has been complicated by an apparent lack of understanding by some physicians and nurses of what represents a safe dose,” wrote Dr. Howard Marcus in the December 2011 issue of the magazine. The drug also can create problems for people using other central nervous system depressants or alcohol, he wrote.

Patients with other health issues could also be at risk if they are given Dilaudid for pain management. Patients with sleep apnea, kidney disease or congestive heart failure all can have unintended reactions with Dilaudid, he noted.

A woman in New Mexico is suing a hospital because she had a dangerous reaction to DIlaudid while being treated for severe abdominal pain. The woman was obese and suffered from sleep apnea. She had a seizure during her sleep in the hospital and nurses barely made it in time to save her, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. The complaint alleged that the hospital did not adequately train its staff to monitor patients taking Dilaudid.

The drug is a hydromorphone painkiller used for moderate to severe pain. Dilaudid is a semi-synthetic derivative of morphine and is classified as both a narcotic and an opiate, according to the Promises Treatment Centers website. Doctors prescribe it as an alternative to morphine because it has fewer side-effects, but since it is considerably stronger, there is a potential for abuse.

Doctors commonly order a Dilaudid at a rate of one to four milligram IV, according to Dr. Marcus. That order is similar to eight to 32 milligrams of morphine. After dosing recommendations changed, the new Dilaudid dosages should be 0.2 to 0.6 milligrams every two to three hours.

One large hospital group stopped using other narcotics and started using Dilaudid exclusively with tight controls. By removing meperidine/promethazine, which is no longer a first-line analgesic, the hospital’s staff was required to keep track of fewer types of drugs, dosages, side effects and uses, according to Dr. Marcus. This resulted in lowering the risk of respiratory depression as a result of narcotics.

Families of patients who suspect they have been injured or killed as a result of getting the wrong dose of Dilaudid can contact an attorney who specializes in personal injury and wrongful death.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Journal Watch Pediatrics published a 2007 report that found between 1985 and 2005 more than one child died per year in the United States because of suffocation associated with a bumper pad.

The Chicago Tribune found that federal officials have investigated more crib deaths but have not officially blamed the fatalities on the bumper pads. In other cases, death certificates have indicated a child suffocated against a bumper pad but no federal investigator looked into the connection.

The paper’s reporting inspired the Chicago City Council to act on the information and ban the sale of bumper pads in the city. City aldermen said they introduced the ordinance in part to encourage federal regulators to act. Chicago is the only city in the United States to institute such a ban.

Health officials in Maryland proposed a ban on crib bumper pads in September for that state. If Maryland legislators take up the issue, it would become the first state to do so. Officials also called for an education campaign to accompany the ban, according to the Baltimore Sun. The educational campaign will include safe sleep videos that will be shown in maternity wards. The task force advising Maryland officials concluded the bumper pads provide little safety effect, but pose a small, real death risk with asphyxiation.

The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that cribs should contain no pillow-like objects like adult blankets or stuffed animals. Target and Babies R Us both indicated that they would comply with the local laws, according to the Tribune.

Chicago’s ordinance will be enforced by the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection for the city. Retailers can expect a fine of up to $500 per violation for breaking the ordinance, according to the Tribune.

Bumper pads are sold to help prevent babies from getting their limbs trapped between the mattress and the walls of the crib. They are supposed to be firm and not pillow-like so as to prevent suffocation. The city of Chicago did not specify how it would define bumper pads for the purpose of the ban.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“State and national data indicate that drugged driving is a growing problem that demands more attention,” said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association in a press release announcing the group’s new policy.

The group wants states to change statutes so that there are distinct sanctions for drug-impaired driving. Beyond that, highway safety advocates also want standardized procedures in labs to detect drugs that impair driving. The group also wants increased testing and reporting of fatally injured drivers in highway crashes.

The GHSA’s campaign began this fall in concert with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which held a summit on the issue in October.

Highway safety advocates say statistics paint a picture of a terrible problem on America’s roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that drug use among drivers killed in crashes was at 18 percent in 2008.

It is not typical protocol to test the bodies of those fatally wounded in car crashes for drugs. But about a third of those tested in 2009 (often because of suspicion) came out positive, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The ONDCP’s recent report also indicated that crash victims often had different drugs in their bodies depending on their age. Younger fatally wounded drivers tended to test positive for marijuana and older victims had more narcotics and depressants in their systems.

The GHSA considers drugged driving to be a serious concern, but drug tests are not universally done in highway fatalities and the group wants that to change. Part of GHSA’s proposal is to provide training to prosecutors to help increase awareness of the results of drugged driving.

“As with drunk driving, a strong national-state partnership is necessary to make progress,” Harsha said in the release.

The GHSA’s new policy pushes for more research to be done in the testing equipment industry so that field tests can help catch drugged drivers early. The group also wants more research to be done to understand the scope of the drugged driving problem in the United States, the physical limitations created by different drugs and the effectiveness of strong laws meant to deter drugged driving.

As the GHSA pushes states to formulate strict drugged driving policies, a significant part of the approach is to get more district attorneys to prosecute more drivers for being impaired by illegal or prescription drugs.

Highway safety advocates hope more prosecutions will lead to more awareness even as news of people killed by drivers on drugs makes the headlines. A wrongful death attorney can help a family who is dealing with the aftermath of a drugged driving accident find out what went wrong and who is at fault.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The Federal Workers’ Compensation Modernization and Improvement Act passed the House in November. It is the first time the laws have been overhauled in about 40 years.

The new law would empower the Labor Department to identify those federal employees who work somewhere else illegally while drawing federal workers’ compensation. Social Security Administration earnings data will help the Labor Department see who is “double dipping”.

The big winners in this bill might be federal workers in rural areas who might not have the same access to medical care as their counterparts in urban areas. The new law would allow advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to certify that somebody has been disabled. This provision may help speed up the process for some beneficiaries, according to the Federal Times.

The new law also may streamline claims processes for federal workers who are injured in a combat zone. Injuries and illness caused by terrorist attacks also would be covered as a war risk, according to the Times.

“This legislation will help ensure federal employees have access to a program that reflects the realities of today’s economy and the best practices in medical care,” said Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., who co-sponsored the bill.

In addition to speeding up some claims and cutting down on fraud, the new legislation would expand benefits for federal workers who were killed or severely injured in the line of duty. Survivors would be able to claim up to $6,000 for funeral expenses if the federal employee dies from on-the-job injuries. If an employee is severely disfigured (in the face, head or neck) while on duty, then he or she could be due up to $50,000.

The House bill differs from a Senate bill proposed almost a year ago. The Senate’s version required federal employees and postal employees on workers’ compensation to retire at age 65. The House and Senate bills each have their own unique factors where they think a federal worker’s compensation plan will not discourage the employee from rehabilitation and an eventual return to the workforce. The eventual legislation also must grapple with what to do with employees already on workers’ compensation.

The House is considering legislation that would remove the postal service from the Federal Employees Compensation Act and create a new program for them that would have its own specific guidelines.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Truck drivers suffer more than 16 percent of all transportation fatalities in the United States, according to a 2009 survey.

Proper truck cabin design can impact highway safety by making the road more visible to the driver and making the controls easier to reach. For the driver, increased seat belt comfort means professional drivers will be more likely to use the safety harness and will be safer in the event of an accident.

The CDC report calls on truck companies to consider the diversity of the professional driver workforce as they design new truck cabs. “As the truck manufacturing industry moves forward to design the next generation of truck cabs, there is a pressing need for up-to-date information on the body dimensions of U.S. truck drivers,” the report reads.

Until recently, truck manufacturers had been using truck driver body dimension data from 1980 to help design the drivers’ workspace. The industry has diversified in the 30 years since that data was collected and the CDC hopes manufacturers will consider women and new ethnic groups that have made careers in professional driving.

Researchers with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recently completed a four-year study in which they measured more than 30 body dimensions of about 2,000 professional drivers across the country. Not surprisingly, the results showed that the size and shape of the American truck driver has changed significantly in the past 30 years.

NIOSH shared the results of the study with the trucking industry and already three parts suppliers and four truck manufacturers have used the data to improve design. The information is helping to design trucks with easier entry, more comfortable seat belts and better visibility, according to a press release from the CDC.

RAMSIS, a design software company, is updating its product line with the new data to help the entire industry. The Society for Automotive Engineers confirmed that it is updating truck cab standards based on the information gathered in the body dimension study.

All of these changes are positive steps for highway safety. As of 2009, about 1.5 million people were employed as professional drivers of heavy trucks and tractor trailers, according to the CDC. Among those professionals, almost two-thirds complained that the seat belts in their trucks were uncomfortable, according to the study. About a third of all collisions involving trucks happened because of a blind spot in the vehicle. A truck designed for comfort and utility is a safer truck and makes the highway a safer place for the professional driver and others on the road.

Truck drivers who are suffering from serious injuries should consult a skilled truck accident attorney to help get compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering, and lost wages.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

American manufacturers and importers are now required to test and certify their children’s products with a third party to ensure compliance, according to a release from the CPSC.

The new rules mean that companies must submit a representative sample of each product for testing, both randomly and if there is a material change in a product. A material change might be a new product design, an upgraded manufacturing process, or even a new source of component parts. If any of these changes have occurred, the product must be resubmitted to the third party testing agency for recertification.

If a product fails the testing process, the manufacturer will have to address the problems with the product. The CPSC also addressed influence in its new rules. Independent, third party product testers will need to be approved by the CPSC to avoid undue influence by the manufacturers.

Manufacturers may rely on component part testing by suppliers to meet the testing requirements, according to the new rules. This relieves some of the burden the new rules could impose on the companies.

Companies will need to keep records of the testing on file for five years. Children’s product manufacturers were already required to do initial testing on many products, including those with small parts, cribs, children’s jewelry and pacifiers.

The Toy Industry Association worked closely with the CPSC while the agency was crafting the rules. “The CPSC has been responsive to toy industry comments while developing its ruling on third party testing, and the toy industry is pleased with the improvements that have been made,” said Ed Desmond, executive vice president of external affairs at the TIA.

Children’s products in compliance with the new law may carry a physical label that reads: “Meets CPSC Safety Requirements”, but labeling is voluntary. The agency is also moving forward with a proposed change in the rules that affects representative samples. If passed, this proposal would allow firms to use product samples in the periodic testing process that the company knows to be representative of the product since it was last tested.

Industry standards help regulate the process so that consumers and parents can expect safety in products manufactured for use by children. The rules also benefit manufacturers who can trust that their supply chain has to meet standards that will keep their products compliant with the CPSC’s rules.

Parents and families who are concerned about child injuries due to defective products and toys should consult a skilled injury attorney.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The JAMA study found that hospital patients had a lower rate of surviving cardiac arrest at night than they did if they arrested during the day. The comprehensive study was published in February of 2008, but since then hospitals have responded with creative ideas to close the gap in care.

Hospital consultant Dr. John Nelson coined the term nocturnist to describe the health care professionals that hospitals are hiring to help improve response times and patient safety. Nelson said the role of a nocturnist has risen sharply in the past decade with as many as 1,500 nocturnists working in hospitals today compared to about 100 only 10 years ago.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement hosted a seminar on the subject in December. The IHI brought a quality control consultant from Wales, U.K., a pediatrics professor from Cincinnati and a Springfield, Mass. medical director to the seminar to discuss the ideas being used to close the gap in care.

The group discussed the challenges hospitals face in providing quality care to patients at night, including patients who put off calling an attending physician until the morning. They also discussed the special training being implemented recently to help professionals recognize patient needs as the patients themselves are more likely to overlook issues because of being at rest.

Doctors at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond looked at adult cardiac arrest survival rates by time of day and day of week in hopes that the findings could inform hospital staffing, training and equipment decisions, according to the JAMA.

The study looked at about 86,000 in-hospital cardiac arrests in 507 medical/surgical hospitals over a seven-year period. About 58,000 of those cardiac arrests happened during daytime or evening hours and about 28,000 cases happened at night.

Researchers found discrepancies in all of the data they observed, but survival to discharge was the most significant. Patients who went into cardiac arrest during the daytime or evening hours were five percent more likely to survive than patients who arrested at night. Weekend rates were similar to night rates, according to the study.

“The principal finding of this study was that survival to discharge following in-hospital cardiac arrest was lower [when the arrest occurred] during nights and weekends compared with day/evening times on weekdays, even after accounting for many potentially confounding patient, arrest event, and hospital factors,” the authors wrote.

Individuals and their loved ones who are experiencing pain and suffering after a nighttime incident at a hospital can have their rights upheld by a medical malpractice attorney.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Phenylketonuria, or PKU, is a metabolism disorder that mothers can pass on to their children. If untreated, PKU can cause intellectual and developmental disabilities. A person with PKU cannot process a protein called phenylalanine, or Phe, found in most foods. When Phe levels get too concentrated, it can damage the brain, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Babies born in hospitals in the United States are regularly tested for PKU immediately after they are born in order to diagnose them and begin treatment.

The AAP warns that if pregnant women with PKU do not keep a close eye on their Phe levels they may be putting their unborn children at significant risk. Elevated Phe levels during pregnancy can lead to significant development delays, birth defects, growth retardation and microcephaly.

Women of childbearing age with any form of PKU, even mild cases like mild hyperphenylalaninemia, should be counseled about their risks for adverse fetal effects. The AAP’s research shows that best results come when hopeful mothers maintain strict control of maternal phenylalanine concentration before conception and all the way through the pregnancy.

Women with hyperphenylalaninemia who cannot or will not maintain optimum blood Phe concentrations for their pregnancy should be carefully counseled not only about the risks of mental retardation in their children, but also concerning what can happen if the Phe levels get unbalanced, even occasionally, during the pregnancy. Structural defects like congenital heart disease can develop if Phe levels are out of control early in the pregnancy. The AAP strongly suggests that women access high-quality reproductive counseling.

The pediatric academy also encourages genetic counseling for women with PKU before and after conception. The group suggests pregnant women with hyperphenylalaninemia get regular, detailed ultrasonographic exams and fetal echocardiograms to look out for fetal abnormalities. Pregnant women with PKU can be educated about critical times in the pregnancy for organogenesis so that Phe concentrations can be carefully monitored. There are medical centers with skilled clinicians who specialize in helping women with PKU.

Finally, the AAP recommends that mothers whose newborns have features suggestive of maternal PKU, like microcephaly or congenital heart disease, get blood tested for hyperphenylalaninemia. Even if an infant has an initial elevation of Phe concentration that is then resolved, mothers should be tested.

The group encourages families of people with PKU to work with their pediatrician to ensure access to social services and the right foods.

Doctors and health care professionals owe a standard of care to counsel expectant mothers about PKU and the risks of birth defects before and during a pregnancy.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The website simulator puts the user in a driving environment complete with a loud radio, chatty passengers and a ringing phone. If the website’s user clicks on any of the distractions, the simulator will wreck the car into another vehicle. If the user keeps his or her eyes on the road, then the simulator congratulates the person. Crash statistics greet the user after each wreck, such as 5,474 people were killed in automobile crashes that involved distracted drivers in 2009. Another 448,000 were injured.

The DOT’s distracted driving challenge page is loaded with statistics and alarming information. For instance, traffic crashes are the leading cause of death among American teenagers. If you are texting while driving, then you have the same reaction time as someone who is legally drunk.

The site’s target audience is teenagers. More than 15 percent of the accidents caused by distracted driving involve drivers under 20. The site allows teenagers to make a pledge to avoid distracted driving that will be posted to their Facebook page and broadcast to their Twitter followers. It also encourages teens to call out their friends and classmates when they see distracted drivers.

The DOT also has two new television commercials aimed at teen awareness of distracted driving. In each of the commercials, carloads of young people being driven by a teenager who is either texting or talking on a mobile phone slam into stationary objects. The end of the commercials reveals the things they ran into were large stone text abbreviations like OMG, L8R and LOL.

The distraction.gov website was redesigned as part of the campaign to discourage distracted driving. The new site is complete with testimonials like Liz Catherman of Idaho, whose daughter Kassy Kerfoot died at 18 when she lost control of her car while texting during rush hour. The site also contains a report of a pilot program called “Phone in one hand, ticket in the other,” which was modeled after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s successful “Click it or ticket” campaign. In the two pilot cities of Hartford, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y., use of handheld devices dropped significantly during the advertised enforcement waves.

Distracted driving can cause serious accidents and wrongful deaths. Individuals and their families need to get expert legal advice to overcome the challenges after an accident like this occurs. Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“Because of the increased death rate and the likely inappropriate use of tigecycline as a first-line, rather than last-resort, antibiotic for serious infections without simultaneous administration of other antibiotics, it is inexcusable that there is currently no black box warning for tigecycline,” said Carome.

Alternatives to this antibiotic should be explored before a patient is given tigecycline. If it must be given, it should be taken with a combination of bactericidal antibiotics that kills bacteria and does not interfere with growth of bacteria. Because of the power of this drug, Public Citizen advocates that a FDA-approved guide be given to patients about this medicine. It also wants the FDA to send out a “Dear Doctor” letter to warn doctors of the complications and restricted use of the drug.

The FDA originally approved the Pfizer antibiotic back in 2005 for skin and intra-abdominal infections. In 2009, it was approved for community-acquired pneumonia. From 2008 through 2011, sales for Tygacil were an estimated $480 million and 82,000 prescriptions were filled in the U.S. The FDA did require an update to the Tygacil label in 2010, but it only contained stronger warnings. Black box warnings are more prominent, give more guidance, and alert the physician to seek other routes unless there is no clear alternative.

When a loved one has died and a family member discovers they were using Tygacil, it is important to speak with a wrongful death lawyer to see if they have a claim. If the doctor did not try alternatives or ignored warnings, he or she can be held liable for the death.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“By showing a blatant disregard for worker safety and health, this employer continues to expose workers to deadly hazards,” said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels.

In the current round of citations by OSHA, All-Feed was found not to have the right dust collection units for dust from food ingredients. It also did not require workers to use respirators who were exposed to dust levels that are in excess of allowed exposure limits. All-Feed was also given a serious violation for not having a written certification showing that they had eliminated all hazards that could pose an injury or fatality in its facility’s confined spaces.

As a result of 10 years of serious violations, All-Feed is in OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. OSHA will conduct follow up inspections to see if these errors are resolved and worker safety requirements are being upheld.

Beyond the violations already listed, All-Feed failed to keep industrial trucks filled with liquid propane away from combustible dust. The truck drivers did not have safety training and did not have load ratings on lifting devices. The company also did not have a hearing conservation program for employees who worked in areas of excessive noise. Signage was not visible to warn employees of dangerous areas and equipment in hazardous areas did not have warnings on them.

For workers who are dealing with breathing issues and other serious work-related health matters, workers’ compensation is available. Workers’ compensation is designed to help with medical bills, lost time away from work, and other related costs for work-related injuries and illnesses. If an employer is discouraging or blocking a worker from seeking adequate treatment, the employee can get an Illinois workers’ compensation attorney to help uphold their rights.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The center’s “Safety Culture Project” shows that even though health care workers give themselves high grades on patient safety, more than 50 percent are afraid to report mistakes because they fear that they would be held against them. For patient safety to increase and medical malpractice claims to come down, this must improve. Currently, adverse events happen in a third of hospital admissions. Medication errors cause another 52 percent of adverse outcomes.

The Joint Commission is concerned that serious injuries and fatalities could be on the rise due to a lack of a safety culture. Communication failures, hierarchy issues, and budget cuts can have a significant impact on a patient’s well being. The commission is investigating ways to foster a better safety culture and best practices from around the country. When failures and errors are concealed by medical staff, there is little opportunity to learn from these mistakes. But when medical personnel are encouraged “…to speak up about risks to patients, and report errors and near misses” patient safety increases and the culture improves.

In Illinois, the OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is participating in the project along with six other centers nationwide. OSF Saint Francis is a Level I Trauma Center, which is the highest level for trauma care. It is the fourth largest medical center in the state and employs more than 800 doctors and is licensed for 616 beds. Also, it is a teaching affiliate of the Peoria-based University of Illinois College of Medicine.

Saint Francis’ project team will use Robust Process Improvement systems to analyze current best practices and examine safety failures. The Joint Commission asserts that all staff must do their part to focus on patient safety. When they fail to do so because of a “…lack of knowledge, fear of retribution, intimidation or hierarchy issues,” patient safety is compromised.

Patients and their families should contact a medical malpractice law firm when they are suffering or grieving after a serious medical error. Paul Greenberg is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Driver violations involving fatigued driving and driver fitness issues were higher than conventional buses. The curbside carrier safety records show that the carriers are responsible for seven times more fatalities and injury rates, and they carry a higher amount of logbook violations too. And the numbers may be even higher, for no formal categorization for curbside carriers is in existence, which makes it harder for national and state authorities to track these types of carriers.

“Business and safety practices within the growing curbside bus industry create challenges for enforcement authorities and consumers alike when it comes to separating the safe operators from the unsafe operators,” said NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman.

Many curbside carriers are small operations, with less than 10 buses and only a decade or less of doing business. The NTSB has found that many of these companies simply change their business name after a troubled history has negatively impacted their business. Safety advocates say that companies with a history of serious violations should be shut down for good. Federal and state investigators are unable to oversee these curbside carriers in a timely manner because they are overwhelmed with the amount of inspections and reviews for compliance.

Bus drivers who are involved in an accident are usually subject to alcohol and drug tests to see if that caused the accident. Investigations also involve reviewing their cellphone records to see if they were distracted by a phone call, texting, or emailing while driving. Inconsistent enforcement of driving time violations, license requirements, maintenance standards, and lack of compliance reviews is no excuse for an injury or death. Individuals and their loved ones who are dealing with a catastrophic injury or a wrongful death from a bus accident should seek prompt legal action. A bus accident lawyer can investigate what went wrong, who is at fault for the accident, and who is responsible for your medical bills, pain and suffering, and other costs.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago bus accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Birth defects in the brain, spine, or child’s heart could be caused due to uncontrolled diabetes. Sometimes diabetes can cause a child to be born too early and experience breathing, heart, bleeding, intestinal, or eyesight problems. For some women, the child can grow too large due to diabetes. Large babies can have their shoulder nerves or collarbones injured, or suffer from brain damage from lack of oxygen while being pushed out of the birth canal. In this scenario, doctors and delivery room professionals must be proactive about delivering via C-section so as to not cause harm with a natural birth.

Some women who develop diabetes during pregnancy have what is called gestational diabetes. Doctors should check a patient for signs of preeclampsia when the mom-to-be has gestational diabetes. Preeclampsia is noted for causing high blood pressure and swollen limbs. In more severe cases, it can cause a seizure, stroke, or make the baby be born early. Gestational diabetes can sometimes stay after the pregnancy. At this stage, it would be called type 2 diabetes.

In the journal Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, a team of doctors recently researched the “Barriers to managing diabetes during pregnancy: the perceptions of health care practitioners”. Doctors can do more to educate expectant moms about how diabetes can affect them, not just their baby during a pregnancy, they said. Women who can achieve glycemic control before getting pregnant have better pregnancies. Physicians and ob-gyns who can empower their patient with knowledge, access to medical resources, and help them have the right attitude toward approaching a pregnancy with diabetes have better chances for a successful pregnancy, they noted.

Doctors owe a standard of care to patients that have diabetes or develop it during pregnancy to address concerns and guide a patient to have a healthy pregnancy. Otherwise the medical professional or facility can be responsible for a patient death, birth injury, or other medical issue that could have been prevented.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Studies show that those who are prone to abuse prescription painkillers often take larger doses to get feelings of euphoria and lessen withdrawal symptoms. But as larger doses are taken, breathing slows down. When this occurs, a person can stop all together and suffer an untimely death.

The CDC notes that the drugs oxycodone, oxymorphone, hydrocodone, and methadone are the most misused and abused prescription painkillers. Doctors that prescribe painkillers in high doses and in fatal combinations can be held accountable for their actions. Many states are also cracking down on pill mills and pharmacies that are “acting outside the limits of accepted medical practice”. Patient safety must be upheld, and part of this involves screening and examining patients who might be doctor shopping just to get a prescription.

Patient exams and assessments must also look into a person’s history of drug abuse, addiction and dependency. When health professionals see the signs of prescription drug abuse, they should help the patient connect with local resources to find a substance abuse treatment program to help them lessen their addiction and dependence. Medical professionals that look past crucial warning signs and aid the addiction can make him or her liable for a patient’s injury or untimely death. Prescribing drugs for illegitimate medical reasons, and not screening for a patient who might be abusing drugs can cause a physician to lose his or her license, if not suffer further civil and criminal penalties.

The CDC is currently recommending prescription drug monitoring programs that sync with health records so that a health provider can see what medicines a patient is taking. Their report shows that primary care physicians, internal medicine doctors, and dentists most often prescribe these types of prescription painkillers. There are evidence-based guidelines that these providers should follow to prescribe these medicines in safe and effective ways.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

In addition to being cognizant of potentially inclement weather conditions, you should see that your vehicle is properly equipped, such as by installing snow tires. Other tips for winter driving include making sure your gas tank is full and checking your tires to make sure that they are inflated fully and the tread is at a safe level. Keeping your gas tank full also helps to prevent the gas line from being frozen. A snow brush or scraper should be kept in your vehicle during this season too. What sometimes begins as a cold, sunny day can turn into a snowstorm by the time the work day is over. The III also reminds drivers to check their exhaust pipe. If it is blocked, it can cause carbon monoxide to leak. Drivers should also not warm up their car in the garage for the same reason.

Accidents during the winter driving season are a reality, so it pays to review some tips to make your travels safe. The Insurance Information Institute (III) recommends allowing yourself more time to get to your destination. Icy or snowy conditions make drivers go slower, and visibility concerns are often problematic too. Remember that stopping takes a longer time in these types of conditions. These conditions necessitate 10 seconds or more to completely stop, says the III. So avoid following anyone too closely, slamming on the brakes, or darting in and out of lanes as this can cause a serious accident. Cruise control is also not advised on slippery surfaces, so just switch back to normal driving so you are more in control.

Wintry road hazards also affect bridges and paths that do not get much sunlight. Ice can collect in these places when other roads are not affected, so take extra precautions when travelling on them. Distracted driving can also cause unnecessary accidents in the winter. Avoid using a cellphone, texting, grooming while driving, and other tasks that can take your eyes off the road for even a few seconds – this is all it could take to cause a bad auto accident.

If you are in a serious accident, get medical attention promptly and contact an accident attorney to help you. A skilled auto accident lawyer can uphold your rights against an insurance company that might not want to give you all the compensation you deserve. Catastrophic auto accidents can take lots of medical attention, lost time away from work, and cause other pain and suffering.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago auto accident lawyer and auto accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Yet new research from a doctor and expert in cancer-drug dosing from the University of Chicago shows that patients could be “…better off taking much lower doses along with a meal,” said Dr. Mark Ratain. “This could reduce the risks of an overdose, save money and give patients more control over their daily lives.”

Because of the long-ingrained standard of taking anti-cancer medications without food, Ratain is concerned that patients could be susceptible to ingesting unintended high doses. In his example in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ratain notes that some patients will fast for two hours before taking the 1,000 milligram dose but then get hungry within an hour. Depending on how many calories are eaten, a patient could be at risk for 10 times the normal dose. The heightened chances for an overdose and untimely death could have been prevented with novel thinking about how anti-cancer drugs should be taken, Ratain proposes.

Ratain suggests that patients should take a lower dose with food. This would not only be safer and more cost efficient, but would help the medicine be more effective. Every patient is advised to speak to their doctor before they take any action on this matter. An individual’s doctor can best examine the patient’s medical history, how he or she will metabolize the medicine with food, and any other concerns that are important to consider.

More research should be done to make the anti-cancer drugs fit into a patient’s lifestyle. Ratain says that taking a one-fourth of a dose with a sensible, low-fat meal “…could get the same anti-cancer benefit, [allow patients to] eat when they are hungry and save an estimated $3,750 per month. This way, the patient gets a simplified schedule, the convenience of eating whenever he wants, and shares the savings with his the insurance company.”

A family that is dealing with the death of their loved one due to a drug overdose can take legal action to correct the error that could have been prevented.

Robert Briskman is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The man will likely have to go through weeks of recuperation, possible surgeries, or other courses of treatment for this serious injury. Workers who use power tools must have proper training before using them, and have protective gear to help prevent injuries. It is unclear what caused this mishap, and the worksite investigation will most likely interview coworkers, assess the man’s workstation, and look at the steps the employer took to help workers have a safe work environment. Regardless of the incident, an employer is required to allow their worker to utilize workers’ compensation to cover medical bills, lost wages, and other related costs until the worker is cleared with a clean bill of health.

OSHA has many educational resources employers can utilize to help workers be safer with power tools such as drills and bigger equipment like milling machines. Even basic tools can present risks and can cause injuries if they are not used properly or maintained. Employers are responsible for tools and machines that employees use. It is important that power tools have safety guards and controls to turn off the device with a single motion or use the same fingers that turn it on.

If a manufacturer issues a recall, employers are responsible for following through to replace tools or equipment to prevent any harm. If it is an outright, one-time defect, a manufacturer can be liable if it has caused an extensive injury or death. Employers must train workers to spot hazards and provide general safety education so that devices are not misused. Improperly used devices or ones that are not maintained can crack a device, sending it flying in the workroom, or even cause a person to trip or slip, for example. Sometimes these incidents can create greater hazards than realized, so it is every employer’s responsibility to be proactive about their equipment no matter how big or small. Safety goggles, gloves, appropriate work clothing, and clean and dry work areas can help set the stage for worker safety.

Individuals who need to have their rights to workers’ compensation upheld or have a concern about the tool or machine that malfunctioned should get a qualified workers’ compensation attorney on their side.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“Ultimately, brakes are a major factor in being able to operate a commercial vehicle safely, yet they continue to be cited as one of the leading factors in crashes due to defects and improper maintenance and adjustment,” said CVSA’s executive director Stephen A. Keppler. He also noted that drivers, mechanics, and trucking managers need to be educated more about “…the importance of proper adjustment, maintenance, and operation to ensure every commercial vehicle is operating safely, and, ultimately, to save lives.”

Commercial vehicles take at least twice as long to brake in comparison to normal automobiles and smaller trucks. If brakes are defective or poorly adjusted, it creates even more problems and increases the stopping distance needed. The Operation Air Brake Campaign by the CVSA encourages more driver education, for it only takes a few minutes to check for brake defects and adjust air brakes to prevent an accident. Simply choosing not to check your brakes is unacceptable, as you could not only your compromise your life but risk others too. Companies that are committed to safety should have their drivers and mechanics certified in these safety measures, and provide continuing education.

Operation Air Brake has an international scope and conducts safety campaigns, including inspections, throughout the year. These inspections are more of an educational effort rather than enforcement, so that drivers can better understand braking systems and what constitutes a proper inspection. Trucking safety directors and truck stop operators are encouraged to create a culture of safety awareness of maintaining brakes, wearing seatbelts, and lessening distracted driving.

It will take a concerted effort to lessen the 29 percent of truck accidents that are caused by faulty brakes. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration does have rules and regulations regarding brake performance standards that all semi-trucks must meet. Trucking companies, drivers, and product manufacturers that are negligent in the manufacture, use, and maintenance of their brakes can be found liable when a person is seriously injured or dies in a trucking accident.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The most common injuries are cuts and bruises, dehydration, and head injuries. In particular, head injuries on goalposts are raising concerns that possible safety interventions and equipment changes might need to happen to protect a child’s well-being. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has noted that goalposts have caused youth fatalities because of the severe impacts soccer players experience when the moveable posts fall over.

Earlier this year, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn passed a law that bans the manufacture of movable soccer goals in the state that are not tip resistant. The Moveable Soccer Goal Safety Act, H.B. 1130, came about after a six year old was struck in the head by a 184-pound metal soccer goal that was not properly secured and fell on him. The child died later from the injuries. Also known as “Zach’s Law”, after the child, it makes groups that use moveable soccer goals follow federal safety guidelines and have soccer goal education and safety programs and guidelines.

“Improperly secured soccer goals present a serious threat to our athletes, especially children,” said Governor Quinn. “Illinois is leading the nation in recognizing and preventing these types of safety concerns.”

In Illinois, any group that has a moveable soccer goal with inside measurements of 6.5 to 8-feet high and 18 to 24-feet wide must meet tip-resistant standards according to the American Society for Testing and Materials guidelines. Illinois will ban the sale or manufacture of any goals that do not have these tip-resistant standards in their products beginning August 2, 2012.

Zach’s family has started the Zachary Tran Memorial Fund and an “Anchored for Safety” initiative so that other parents and groups can learn about how to properly anchor a movable soccer goal.

Individuals and their loved ones who are dealing with serious injuries or a wrongful death do have steps they can take to recover compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering, and other costs. Guilty individuals, groups, and product manufacturers should be held accountable by a qualified attorney and law firm.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“Doctors and patients ought to feel confidence, respect and trust in each other,” said Dr. Mark Siegler, the Executive Director of the Bucksbaum Institute. “Good patient care begins with clinical competence, but it combines technical skills and clinical judgment with close attention to the patient’s individual values and needs. The doctor-patient relationship relies on communication, discussion and negotiation. They work together to search for the best decision for the patient.”

Miscommunication, misdiagnoses, and other medical mishaps increase the risk of patient injuries and death. Incidents of medical malpractice rise when a culture of safety is not upheld. The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare reports that communication errors are the leading cause of sentinel events. These events pose great danger to patient health and livelihood. Health care staff can often feel afraid to speak up about missteps they see in the course of a day in a hospital, office, surgery center, or long-term care facility. The Joint Commission says that, “This reluctance stems from lack of knowledge, fear of retribution, intimidation or hierarchy issues – all elements that weaken a safety culture.”

Centers like the Bucksbaum Institute can go a long way to improving communication skills not only between the doctor and patient, but enhance communication between colleagues. Especially when 80 percent of serious medical mishaps are due to miscommunication when patients are handed-off to the next staff on call or are transferred, there is still room for improvement.

The Bucksbaum Institute will target a select group of senior physicians, junior faculty, and medical students each year to improve skills in order to assist patients in making informed decisions, particularly when they are faced with a wide array of treatment choices. The institute expects to make a lasting impact on better patient care and address a wide variety of patient conditions and illnesses that come up at the University of Chicago Medical Center and beyond.

Individuals and their loved ones can take legal action when poor communication has resulted in injuries or a wrongful death.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“Unfortunately, research shows that up to half of pregnant women are not counseled by their health care providers about the potential risks of medications they may be taking, and programs to provide this information have been closing due to state and local budget cuts,” said Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

DeLauro recently introduced H.R. 2029, the Birth Defects Prevention, Risk Reduction, and Awareness Act of 2011 into the House of Representatives. When passed, the bill will implement a program to make expectant mothers aware of how to prevent birth defects. It will also target medical professionals to increase awareness of pregnancy and breastfeeding information. Grants for these campaigns and research are also a part of the bill.

“During my 25-year medical practice as an obstetrician, I saw far too many expectant mothers and newborn babies affected negatively by a simple lack of education and information,” said Texas Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. “Many of the issues that arise from this lack of information are preventable, so we must make sure pregnant women have access to services and education to ensure a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.”

Ob-gyns and other medical professionals owe a duty to care for their patients in an adequate, safe manner. This means that they should fully assess a patient’s medical history, use of medications and over the counter drugs, and any other risks that can cause a birth defect. It is also important to extend this duty to care while a mother is breastfeeding, as this can have a big effect on the child’s development. Healthy behaviors like taking folic acid, a multi-vitamin, and eating a balanced diet are also encouraged.

For mothers and families that are suffering from a birth injury because of the carelessness or negligence of a medical professional or a facility, they should contact an experienced birth injury law firm.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“Time and again the statistics show that the collision that kills more of us than any other is the single-vehicle, off-the-road collision,” says Bob Schaller, an editor for RoadTrip America.

Single-vehicle crashes kill 8,000 people a year nationwide and cause many serious injuries that can take months and years to recover from. Many of these crashes are preventable. Slowing down on dangerous roads and areas you are not familiar with can lessen the chances of a crash. Staying in versus risking your life to get somewhere during or after a big winter storm also is important. Of all the single auto accidents, 70 percent are caused by veering off the road for some reason, reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Beyond slowing down, driving while drowsy or under the influence of alcohol also contributes to many single car accidents. The NHTSA reports that driver attention causes close to 80 percent of all accidents. From eating, using your cellphone, to changing controls on your dashboard, it only takes three seconds to cause a serious single car accident. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that slow reaction times or oversteering can also cause an accident. If your vehicle begins to veer off the road, do not try to suddenly turn or slam on the brakes. It is better to let off the gas and continue on the shoulder as you slow down.

Beyond all these concerns, sometimes a single car accident is not the driver’s fault. A skilled attorney will investigate if a manufacturer is liable for errors that caused the accident, such as faulty brakes and other parts that malfunctioned. Sometimes why an accident has occurred is not evident at first, and merits taking the time to speak with an attorney about the collision.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Governor Pat Quinn recently signed a new law that lets school officials take care of any student who is having a severe allergic reaction. A school nurse can now use an epinephrine shot, EpiPen or another device. The law also permits schools to keep a stock of this medicine at the nurse’s office. Even if a student has not been previously diagnosed with the allergy but develops one for the first time, the nurse can now administer this medicine when critical situations arise.

“When a child suffers a severe allergic reaction, every second counts,” said Governor Quinn. “With food allergies on the rise, we take action to help children with dangerous allergies. This law allows our schools to be prepared and for school nurses to take the immediate action that could save a child’s life.”

Illinois schools must now have an allergy management policy with guidelines from the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Department of Public Health. Schools are not forced to have the medicine on hand, but many officials say schools will stock it just in case. With approximately 40 percent of children suffering from food allergies and 30 percent allergic to multiple foods, this is a smart move by the state. Common food allergies involve peanuts, milk, and shellfish. An estimated 300,000 children go to the hospital each year for anaphylaxis.

Schools that do not stock these important medicines risk the lives of their students. Briskman Briskman & Greenberg is a respected law firm that takes action to get their clients compensation for funeral expenses, loss of financial support, and other costs. Their team of Chicago wrongful death attorneys helps families with all the legal challenges so you can focus on spending time with your loved ones.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Workers should report any incidents promptly to their employer and union representative, as applicable. It is important to take photos of what occurred and write down the names and contact information of witnesses, if possible. The doctor and hospital staff should also be informed of exactly what occurred at the worksite so that the medical records accurately reflect what happened.

Some employees suffer from a repetitive trauma injury or disease that, unlike a fall, can take a long time before manifesting as a physical or medical problem. As soon as an employee becomes symptomatic, he or she should immediately notify their employer. Workers’ compensation laws do cover these types of issues, but workers have only 45 days after the injury manifests itself to report it to their employer.

The biggest adjustments to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act involve some points that workers should make themselves aware of:

Prior to the amendments, an injured worker was allowed to select up to two doctors from whom to receive treatment. The amendments permit an employer to set up a preferred provider program (PPP) that designates two doctors approved by the Department of Insurance. The employee is obligated to receive treatment from the designated doctors unless the employee opts out of the PPP. If an employee chooses not to use the PPP, he or she will only be entitled to select one doctor – rather than the two choices afforded them under the old law – from outside of the PPP network.

Reimbursements to hospitals and doctors who treat injured employees are decreased by 30 percent. As a result, the state’s medical society and patient advocates are concerned that doctors will stop treating workers’ comp individuals, thus delaying patient treatment.

For workers dealing with “permanent partial” disabilities, arbitrators will now analyze the severity of impairment according to American Medical Association (AMA) guidelines, evidence of the disability, future earning capacity, occupation and age. Opponents to this new guideline say the AMA rates impairment, not disability, and are raising concerns that a person’s injury or illness will not be properly categorized.

The amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act changed many other aspects of the former law. Workers are strongly advised to seek legal counsel so that their case is presented in the strongest manner and all documentation is completed thoroughly within the time limitations.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago workers’ compensation attorney and Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

A separate incident on Route 394 killed a woman who was about to celebrate her birthday. She was driving her Ford Explorer in the late afternoon when a semi truck veered across the grassy median and hit her head-on. The SUV caught on fire and killed her. In Chicago, a six-vehicle crash involving two semi trucks and four cars did not end well. The car drivers sustained injuries along with one truck driver, and the other truck driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Semi truck accidents typically are more dangerous for any passenger vehicles involved. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports that car drivers and occupants die in 78 percent of these types of crashes. Semi truck drivers must remain alert and share the road safely with all the other types of vehicles. Some of a big rig’s “no zones” are so large that vehicles can be hidden from the truck driver’s view. Passenger vehicle drivers need to give big rigs plenty of room, drive defensively and never cut in front of the truck.

The top unsafe practices of big rig drivers involve:
– Unsafe speeds
– Improper turning with insufficient headway
– Driving fatigue and lack of attentiveness
– Not stopping at a red light or stop sign
– Improper lane changing
– Driving left of center or into opposing traffic
– Crossing traffic with insufficient headway

The main unsafe driving behaviors of passenger vehicle drivers are:
– Judgment problems
– Unsafe speeds
– Right-of-way or headway-related issues
– Lane change or position problems

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“There was a patient demand to get these implants on the misconception that the latest was the best,” said Dr. Henrik Malchau from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now mandating that all manufacturers conduct emergency studies on the metal hips. Some patients are experiencing pain as a result of metallic debris that is coming off the artificial hip. Others are developing gray fluid around their hip. And some are showing signs of abnormal tissue growth around the hip and tumors.

Women and older individuals are more at risk to complications from all-metal hips. Patient safety advocates say that more testing should have been done before these devices were allowed to be mass marketed. The thinking that new is always better definitely did not come true with these devices.

The FDA does not require clinical trials on most all-metal hips. They are only required to be tested in the lab by machines to simulate use. Critics say these simulations are conducted under conditions that do not mimic real-world scenarios of movement and strain. All-metal hips are less resilient, which is why some individuals are dealing with tissue, muscle, and neurological concerns even in the first year after surgery.

Manufacturers are under pressure to come out with new products that utilize the latest technology to stay ahead of the competition. But recent headlines show that across manufacturers and products, new devices and drugs do not always live up to the hype. Medtronic’s new heart device fractured after being implanted in some patients and caused 12 deaths. Artificial spinal discs proved no better than what had been in use. Avandia, a blockbuster diabetes drug, caused heart attacks, and the medical community went back to medicines that had a long-term history of helping diabetes patients.

“The vast majority of the ‘innovations’ on which we have spent money with respect to orthopedics over the past two decades have not resulted in improved patient outcomes,” said Dr. Kevin J. Bozic, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Previous artificial hips were made of metal and plastic. These devices have been found to remain safe and work for 95 percent of patients, even after a decade of use. Patient safety advocates say problems with the all-metal hips could have been prevented, or at least lessened, with more rigorous testing, phasing in of the product to select patients, and more consistent product records.

Individuals who are dealing with serious injuries and concerns after having an all-metal hip implanted should seek immediate medical attention and the expertise of a personal injury lawyer.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

People will be able to select medical professionals proactively and see reports of any disciplinary or legal proceedings that have occurred in the last five years. This includes any medical malpractice settlements, felony criminal convictions, Class A misdemeanors, disciplinary measures outside of Illinois, and any restriction of hospital privileges. Basic information regarding the physician’s years of practice and license status is also provided.

“This is important information, and we wanted to make it as accessible and transparent as possible,” said Rep. Mary Flowers (D-Chicago), who co-sponsored the bill. “Today, you can do your banking online, take a virtual tour of a home, and it’s important that we bring that technology to bear on one of the most important decisions you can make – who to choose as your doctor.”

The push for reactivation of this searchable database was strong. For two years the physician profiles were taken offline when an Illinois Supreme Court case invalidated the program along with instituting other medical malpractice caps. People used to flock to the database that attracted more than 21,400 searches daily.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that up to 98,000 people die from medical mistakes each year. The objectives of the HHS’ National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) are to:
– Promote a culture of safety throughout health care organizations to decrease healthcare-related infections and serious adverse events
– Reduce preventable and premature deaths in hospitals
– Reduce monthly death rates for acute myocardial infarction and pneumonia

“Rapid identification and aggressive treatment of complications may prevent these complications from leading to death,” the NHQR stated.

The NHQR states that hospital staffs owe their patients a high standard of care and office-based physicians, outpatient departments, and pharmacies are also responsible for ensuring a patient’s safety. The searchable database will be another tool to empower patients to make informed medical decisions.

Medical professionals have a duty to care for their patients and safeguard them from further harm. When an individual’s rights have been compromised or neglected, they should immediately contact a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer to hold the guilty party accountable.

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“It’s not that things are worse in the United States than before, it’s that the U.S. isn’t making progress like other countries,” said Dr. Joy Lawn, a pediatrician who works for Save the Children.

Dr. Lawn researched newborn death rates worldwide in conjunction with researchers from the World Health Organization, the London School of Hygiene, and Tropical Medicine in England. An estimated 41 percent of children that die worldwide are under a month old.

“Proper care can prevent all three problems,” said Lawn. “Training more midwives and other community health workers could save the lives of many more babies. We know that solutions as simple as keeping newborns warm, clean and properly breast-fed can keep them alive.”

Previous initiatives have concentrated on children older than one month. The United Nations has a goal of decreasing child mortality rates worldwide by two thirds. As part of the Millennium Development Goal, the U.N. wants to accomplish this target by 2015. Recently, the Birth Defects Prevention, Risk Reduction, and Awareness Act of 2011, H.R.2029, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When passed, the bill will set up a birth defects prevention and awareness program that the
Secretary of Health and Human Services via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will run. The program will reach out to health care professionals about best practices and target at-risk mothers regarding pregnancy and breastfeeding information. Grants for research, campaigns, and support of infant health initiatives will also be implemented.

The CDC encourages parents to have their newborn screened for illnesses and other potential health problems during infancy. Even before going home with their baby, the newborn should be tested for the following:
– Amino acid metabolism disorders: increased levels of amino acids or ammonia can cause disorders and even death
– Organic acid metabolism disorders: when these acids are not broken down properly, they can cause toxins to accumulate; inadequate treatment can result in a coma or death within the first month of a baby’s life
– Fatty acid oxidation disorders: defects in enzymes can hamper fat from turning into energy and cause sugar levels to drop; vital organs including the brain can be affected
– Hemoglobinopathies: red blood cell diseases can cause anemia, serious infections, pain and organ damage
– Hearing: to gauge potential hearing problems
– Jaundice: to prevent this problem from causing brain damage

Robert I. Briskman is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) notes that the number one cause of death for construction workers are falls. Unprotected edges should have either a guardrail, safety net, or personal fall arrest system. Roofs with hazardous surfaces, such as those with skylights, must be roped off. An average of 540 workers dies every year from falling off buildings, ladders, or scaffolds. Employers must maintain safe hoists, ropes, and auxiliary equipment and have guidelines to conduct periodic inspections of equipment.

At a minimum, employers must address each of these potential hazards:
Do hoists have limit devices to ensure safety?
Are weight loads for hoists marked for the operator?
Are hoist controls visibly marked?
Do hoists have working warning devices?
Are hoist ropes maintained at proper length for full range of movement?
Are contact points between ropes guarded?
Are kinked ropes or substitutes discarded?
Are only trained employees allowed to use hazardous equipment?

NIOSH also recommends that employers train workers to recognize and avoid unsafe conditions and have a safety supervisor inspect equipment before use. Checking for wear and tear and other conditions that could make the items faulty is crucial. With safety training, each worker should understand their role in monitoring for hazards as they complete their work. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) mandates that employers provide safety training and keep a log of the dates that workers are certified. Retraining is highly advised. In late August the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hosted a “Prevention Through Design” conference to address workplace safety and design methods to prevent worker injuries and death.

An individual has a right to seek legal action if their employer or a third party causes the workplace accident. An employer who is negligent or careless or a manufacturer who sells a faulty part or piece of equipment can be charged with the injury or death. The Chicago wrongful death lawyer Robert I. Briskman, Esq. will take action to pursue compensation for funeral expenses, loss of financial support, and other costs. Briskman Briskman & Greenberg is a respected law firm known for getting their clients results. Their team of Chicago wrongful death attorneys will help your family with all the legal challenges so you can focus on spending time with your loved ones. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago wrongful death attorney and Chicago wrongful death lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

As carmakers look to satiate new buyers, they are putting more social media, infotainment, and applications on their touch screens. As if texting and cellphone use weren’t enough of a problem, this now raises even more concerns about distracted driving. Reports show that distracted driving is involved in 80 percent of all accidents and causes 5,500 deaths a year.

Consumer Reports found that many touch screen devices take six steps to activate features and roughly 10 seconds of a driver’s concentration.

Consumers increasingly feel the need to “stay connected” when they are driving. Many drivers use what seems to be a free moment to look up an address, see a Facebook post, or read about a restaurant they are headed to. However, it only takes a few seconds for a dangerous situation to occur and a life to change.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will soon issue guidelines so that new vehicles have technology that can be safely used. “We’re going to get to a place where consumers will have adequate ways to control the distractions in their vehicles,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Consumer Reports advocates that, “While the connected car does have its appeal with quick access to information that can help you save time and gas, consumers should use these electronics sensibly and help reduce the risk by planning ahead of time.”

The NHTSA is pushing for more technology to prevent accidents due to distracted driving. Technology that wirelessly transmits actions between vehicles, synchs with traffic signals and speed laws, and activates brakes automatically when an accident is imminent are the wave of the future.

“Rather than react to every technology as it pops up, NHTSA needs a framework that clearly defines the danger zone for the driver, allowing us to keep pace with the industry rather than playing catch-up,” said NHTSA administrator David Strickland.

When an accident due to distracted driving happens, a driver or passenger has the right to go after the guilty driver and get compensation from the car insurance company for medical expenses.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago accident lawyer and Chicago accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

In recently published statistics, the Illinois Department of Health noted that 165,500 workplace injuries and illnesses occurred in the latest reporting year. More than 83,300 of these incidents were serious enough to prevent employees from being able to work for a period of time. The largest number of injuries occurred in the transportation, trade and utilities industries, followed by the education, health services, and manufacturing industry.

On average, workers needed 11 days to recover before returning to work. Sprains and strains, cuts and lacerations, and bruises were the most frequent injuries, and workers suffered problems with their back and fingers most often. The Department of Health noted that flooring surfaces and work-required motions and actions caused most of the problems. Employees voiced concerns about overexertion and issues with equipment and objects. By canvassing employers in state and local government as well as private employers, the department found that most injuries happened between 8 a.m. and noon.

Workplace injuries and illnesses can have a big effect on an employee and his or her family. Employers are responsible for reporting injuries and extending workers’ compensation benefits to their workers, including paying for an employee’s medical bills, lost wages, and for more extensive injuries and vocational rehabilitation expenses.

The U.S. Department of Labor publishes a list of monthly incidents in every state, including Illinois, which put workers’ well-being in peril. An excavating and utility company in Oregon, Ill. had four violations for failing to protect employees who were involved in trench operations and at risk of being caved in. Jewel Food Stores had 13 safety violations in Franklin Park for exposing workers to hazardous levels of ammonia in their refrigeration systems; the store had not created or enforced operating procedures to safely handle the substance. And in Chicago, Home Depot failed to remove defective safety equipment intended to protect employees from falling. This store had already been cited once before for this violation. It was also fined for not maintaining the capacity plates on powered industrial vehicles, which could cause a serious injury to workers.

Employers are responsible for maintaining safe workplaces for their employees and conducting safety training. When a workplace accident occurs, an employer cannot retaliate against an employee and must provide medical and financial support as outlined in the Illinois workers’ compensation laws. When an employer or its insurance company fails to provide workers with these minimum benefits, an employee can take legal action.

The Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer Robert I. Briskman, Esq. has decades of experience in these types of cases and works tirelessly to get his clients the fair compensation they are due. The law firm of Briskman Briskman & Greenberg excels in working with the employer’s insurance company and third parties to recover your medical bills, lost wages, and vocational rehabilitation and other costs. Their team of Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys understands just how devastating a workplace accident can be and offer free consultations to discuss your case.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago workers compensation attorney and Chicago workers compensation lawyer with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

In East Hazel Crest, two tractor trailers collided, causing one of the drivers to die. The accident occurred early in the morning on South Halsted Street. The driver that survived was given a ticket for his role in the accident. But a lot stiffer penalties are now in play after the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that truck drivers who cause accidents and are found with traces of illegal drugs in their system can be found guilty of a felony versus just a misdemeanor. The Chicago Tribune recently reported that prosecutors in four cases in Cook, DuPage, and Kane counties relied on the high court’s opinion to charge guilty drivers.

Even if careless driving caused the accident, remnants of illegal drugs in a truck driver’s system allow the charge to be upgraded. This ruling applies to illegal drugs and prescription drugs used in unlawful ways, such as expired medicines and unsafe quantities. Proof of impairment is not mandated; the evidence of the drug in the bloodstream is the main requirement. The Illinois Supreme Court has been overturning cases on appeals in truck accident cases involving both serious injuries and wrongful death. The stance mimics the drunk driving policy of zero tolerance in the state.

“As tough as this (court opinion) is, maybe it’ll make people realize if you’re going to drive negligent with drugs in your system, you’re going to face tougher penalties,” said JoLynn Lash, whose husband died last November from a driver who was found to have drugs in his system. “It should never be a misdemeanor when someone’s life is lost.”

Drug use is almost as problematic as drunk driving in America. According to a recent study, 25 percent of drivers tested positive for drugs and 37 percent had alcohol in their systems. With its ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court is sending the message that truck drivers must take their jobs very seriously and drive safely. With time, the courts are sure to take a stance on passenger vehicles and drugs found in drivers’ systems.

The Chicago truck accident lawyer Paul A. Greenberg represents auto drivers and truck drivers who have been injured because of the negligence or carelessness of another driver. The truck accident team at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg excels at analyzing who and what caused the accident, and they will uphold your rights to compensation for your injuries. As a SuperLawyer recipient, Chicago truck accident attorney Greenberg is revered by clients, his peers, insurance companies, and the judiciary as an outstanding lawyer in the Chicagoland area. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago truck accident lawyer and Chicago truck accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“We want people to know there is regulatory oversight of these types of facilities and that we are closely monitoring infection control,” said Bill Bell, the division chief for Health Care Facilities and Programs for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

His team went to state facilities unannounced and tracked a patient’s surgery through all the steps rather than merely looking at the facility’s guidelines on infection control. In 2010, almost 76 percent of these facilities had infection control violations. The latest inspections found facilities with the following violations:
Inadequate sterilization and cleaning practices
Reuse of needles, syringes, and vials
Improper or no labeling
Improper use of personal protective equipment
No investigation into why a doctor’s patients had a high frequency of post-op infections
No regular training on infection control
No qualified person in charge of infection control program
Infections not reported

These incidents put patients at risk for contracting infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that errors involving injection processes, equipment cleaning errors, and inadequate environmental cleaning increase the risk of infections. Better communication between nurses and environmental services workers in regards to what is being cleaned after procedures is key. Proper labeling of vials, syringes, and other containers is also crucial.

Not only do surgery centers need to be mindful of their infection control procedures, but long-term care facilities, end-stage renal disease facilities, and hospitals must be vigilant about mitigating the chance of patient and worker infections. The CDC recommends personnel to have “…sufficient and appropriate equipment and supplies necessary for the consistent observation of standard precautions, including hand hygiene products, injection equipment, and personal protective equipment.”

The HHS’ Healthcare-Associated Infections goal for Healthy People 2020 is to ultimately reduce infections related to health care facilities. Infections cause many preventable deaths, serious injuries, and increased medical costs. The HHS is “…particularly concerned about central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections.” When prevention practices are in place the HHS estimates that 70 percent of infections can be reduced, saving at least $25 billion.

When a patient’s life is compromised because of someone else’s negligence or carelessness, they can take legal action. Patients are owed a reasonable standard of care, no matter what type of facility they go to or what procedure they have. The Chicago personal injury lawyer Robert I. Briskman is accomplished in holding health care facilities, staff, and their insurance companies accountable for their mistakes that caused the infection. Briskman Briskman & Greenberg will investigate every route to get their client compensation for their pain and suffering, medical bills, and lost wages. The Chicago personal injury lawyers are respected by their clients, peers, and the courts for their years of service throughout Chicagoland. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

These mistakes play a huge role in causing serious injuries and wrongful deaths in hospitals nationwide. Today’s Hospitalist found that 11 percent of claims brought against hospitals involved pain medicine and management practices. Medical professionals must be cognizant of the fact that most patients enter the hospital already on numerous medications. A full medical history and physical examination are critical before administering new medicines. In instances where a patient is not able to give his or her history, hospitalists should reach out to the patient’s family, pharmacy, or insurer to gather all the prescription information the patient is using.

One area of critical concern is with written prescriptions. The study showed that many hospitalists wrote orders for a dose range instead of an exact dosage and time interval. This is especially problematic when narcotics and sedatives are being used to alleviate pain symptoms given their propensity to cause respiratory depression and respiratory arrest. Hospitals should have guidelines when prescribing multiple narcotics and sedatives to prevent fatal events. And when numerous, powerful medicines are being used, hospitalists need to check on patients every hour to check their respiration, pain, and sedation levels.

A case history that Today’s Hospitalist looked at involved a patient who died after excess dosages of Dilaudid, a narcotic pain medication. As the investigation into the incident followed, it was discovered that a range of pain medication was given instead of precise directions. The nurse spoke to the doctor after the patient’s pain was still at a level 10 after many hours. The doctor was harsh in his responses with the nurse, which ultimately resulted in the patient receiving the equivalent of 88 mg of morphine along with Demerol and Valium. When the nurse gave the last dose to the patient, the doctor stopped by the hospital room but decided not to disturb the patient as he was finally not feeling pain.

Everyone involved should have given more time to the patient and his safety. Nurse and doctor communication should have been more open than tense; dosage directions should have been explicit; and the patient should have been monitored more closely. Medical professionals cannot lose sight of delivering quality care to each patient. Hospitalists owe this duty to their patients, even when they are managing numerous patients and critical care situations. Pain management protocols must be in effect to provide clinicians with checks and balances in these situations, especially when they hand off the patient to the next nurse and hospitalist on duty.

When an individual or their loved one suffers injuries or a wrongful death from a hospitalist’s missed or delayed pain management diagnoses, they should promptly seek legal action. In Illinois, the Chicago medical malpractice attorney Paul A. Greenberg, Esq. will go after the liable individual and hospital to rectify the wrongdoing. The law firm of Briskman Briskman & Greenberg has helped clients for decades as they seek compensation for their pain and suffering, medical bills, and related costs. As successful Chicago medical malpractice lawyers, the team will uphold your rights when your health has been compromised or neglected. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Oxygen deprivation is the primary injury that starts a downward spiral, says the nonprofit group Birth Injury, which educates and increases awareness for individuals and families affected by birth injuries. Inappropriate use of medications, force, and medical instrumentation during a delivery can cause brain damage. Compression of the brain, cerebral contusions or bleeding, and tearing of brain tissue or blood vessels can lead to lifelong injuries. Prolonged contractions and pushing can also cause harm.

The extent of the cerebral palsy may vary depending upon the extent of the child’s oxygen deprivation. Low oxygen during delivery can also cause other injuries, sometimes even more significant than cerebral palsy. Speech and communication impairments, learning and behavioral disorders, as well as hearing and vision problems can occur. Damage to the heart, liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal tract caused by oxygen deprivation can be fatal.

Birth injuries can place a huge burden on families and escalate medical costs depending on how much around-the-clock care is needed. Individuals with more severe cases of cerebral palsy need physical, speech, and occupational therapy in addition to medications and devices to control muscle spasticity and pain. Sometimes surgery is needed to repair joints and muscles.

The Chicago birth injury lawyer Robert I. Briskman vigorously defends an individual and family’s right to hold the doctor or facility accountable for their child’s birth injury. The law firm of Briskman Briskman & Greenberg recommends getting legal counsel early on and works for your cause on a contingency basis, so there are no fees unless the case is successful. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago birth injury lawyer and Chicago birth injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

According to BIKESAFE, most automobile-bicycle accidents occur in the summer months of June, July, and August between 5 and 9 p.m. Through its case studies, BIKESAFE, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Transportation, found that auto-bicycle accidents are most often caused by a driver who:
fails to yield at an intersection light
fails to yield at a stop sign
drives out mid-block or mid-driveway
turns left or right into a bicycle path
tries to overtake a bicycle

An estimated 53,000 injuries occur every year from auto-bicycle accidents and two percent of them are fatal. Cyclists must be mindful to wear helmets, obey traffic laws, and be aware of vehicles around them. In urban areas in and around Chicago, cyclists also have to be cautious with drivers going high speeds. Poor sight distance, speeds that make it harder to brake quickly, and traffic jams can increase the chances of an accident. Injuries can also occur when bicycles ride next to parked vehicles and a door is opened unexpectedly. And in the case of the Cook County senior, riding at dusk and into the night hours can cause visibility problems. Cyclists should be sure to use rear reflectors, pulsing lights, and other bright gear when they ride at night.

Automobile-bicycle accidents can cause serious brain injuries, even when cyclists are struck by vehicles going 35 mph or less. Back and limb injuries are also very common. When an accident like this occurs, the driver’s car insurance is responsible for your medical expenses. The Chicago bicycle accident lawyers at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg have helped many accident victims recover compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering, future care, and lost wages. They are also experienced in guiding loved ones in a wrongful death lawsuit. Their team of Chicago accident attorneys works with the top experts for your medical planning and the accident reconstruction part of your case.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

In the second accident, a car crashed into a semi truck. The car driver crossed the centerline of Illinois Highway 48, slamming into the semi. The car caught on fire after its diesel fuel tank burst. The automobile driver was pronounced dead at the scene from internal chest injuries. The semi driver was able to leave uninjured.

These accidents stress the magnitude of what can happen in a truck accident. Whether you are the driver of a big rig or another vehicle, truck accidents can cause serious injuries, death, and complex legal issues. Investigating the cause of the accident and who is at fault can be particularly challenging. In the first accident, for example, it may be difficult to determine what caused the big rig driver to fall asleep at the wheel. Commercial drivers who are in a deadly accident are tested for drugs and alcohol, but should that come up negative, there are many concerns that only legal experts and accident investigators can properly examine. Questions regarding truck maintenance, pressure for the driver to drive more hours, and even a truck company’s training policies and safety audits come into play.

At fault truck drivers have rights too. Even when a truck driver is at fault, they are entitled to workers’ compensation as their injury was caused on the job.

Many auto drivers do not realize that a semi truck has large blind spots, needs to make wider turns, and cannot stop as fast as normal vehicles. Accidents can occur when cars try to dart around semis or drivers become impatient and drive too closely to them.

If you or a loved one has experienced a traumatic truck accident, a Chicago truck accident lawyer will help you pursue compensation for your injuries and determine who and what is at fault. Chicago truck accident attorney Paul A. Greenberg has years of experience helping clients get compensation for their medical bills, pain and suffering, lost wages and other costs from the guilty party. As a SuperLawyer recipient, he is respected by colleagues, insurance companies, and the judiciary as an outstanding lawyer serving the Chicago and Illinois community. The Chicago car and truck accident attorney team at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg is skilled in handling all the legal issues after a truck accident, allowing you to focus on getting better and back to your normal routine.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

After mid-November of this year, patients will not be able to get these medicines at a neighborhood pharmacy. The Avandia-Rosiglitazone Medicines Access Program will allow patients to get the medicine by certified, mail-order pharmacies. This special program is for patients who have successfully used these medicines and cannot control their blood sugar with other anti-diabetic medicines.

“There are multiple and conflicting signals of cardiovascular ischemic risk related to rosiglitazone,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, the Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “The current cardiovascular safety database for Rosiglitazone does not provide an assurance of safety at the level set out in FDA’s guidance for marketed anti-diabetic drugs. There are not similar signals pertaining to the only other drug in the TZD class available in the US, pioglitazone.”

As to the FDA’s decision regarding the marketing and future sales of rosiglitazone, it found that current meta-analytic findings do show the increase of heart attacks and the risk of “…cardiovascular death and all-cause death, when compared to placebo or non-TZD diabetes drugs.” Most of the drug trials only lasted a year or less, and thus the chances for a serious event or death occur in a short timeframe after use. The European Medicines Agency already decided to halt sales and marketing of rosiglitazone, and patients must find alternative medications.

Chicago personal injury lawyer Robert I. Briskman, Esq. has decades of experience investigating and prosecuting claims on behalf of individuals and their loved ones. As the facts show with Rosiglitazone, the FDA once thought that the drug could be used by the wider population. Now that drug-related injuries and deaths have affected people nationwide, they are finally making it tougher to prescribe. If you or your loved one used this or any other drug and suffered undue harm, you have the right to legal counsel to discuss your situation. The Chicago personal injury attorney team at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg is accomplished in product liability, medical malpractice, and wrongful death lawsuits. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago personal injury lawyer and Chicago personal injury attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

“This is not just a public health emergency – it is a human rights crisis,” Amnesty International said in its report, Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA. The group is promoting H.R. 894, The Maternal Health Accountability Act of 2011, to establish grant funds for maternal mortality review boards in every state. American women are becoming vulnerable to a health care system with “…inadequate staffing and quality protocols; a lack of accountability and oversight; and discrimination.” The bill would also provide funds for further research and analysis.

Obstetrics & Gynecology reported that, “the aggregate pregnancy-related mortality ratio for latest eight-year period is higher than any period in the previous 20 years of the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System.” And, “African-American women continued to have a three-to four-fold higher risk of pregnancy-related death.” Recent trends also show an alarming rate of pregnant women dying from various heart diseases. Peripartum cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal cardiac disease, causes the heart muscle to thin and weaken during the latter part of a pregnancy and following childbirth. A recent news article described how a pregnant woman felt severely short of breath a few days after she gave birth. Her hospital nurses brushed off her complaints. The new mom kept demanding treatment as she knew something was wrong. Two days passed before she was rushed to intensive care and was experiencing congestive heart failure.

“Many clinicians, it seems, are distracted by a woman’s pregnancy – they attribute all unusual physical symptoms to it, even when they’re signs of a serious condition,” said women’s health writer and author Jennifer Block.

Obstetricians, midwives, and delivery room personnel need to pay more attention to heart diseases and symptoms that could seriously compromise a woman’s health. Inadequate treatment, misdiagnosis, and a failure to consult a patient’s medical history can lead to an untimely death or severe complications.

Individuals can take legal action against doctors, nurses and other medical professionals that failed to diagnose, were negligent, or did not treat them with a reasonable standard of care. In Illinois, Chicago medical malpractice attorney Robert I. Briskman, Esq. has decades of holding medical professionals accountable for their actions. As a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer, he will pursue fair compensation for your medical bills, pain and suffering, lost wages, and other costs associated with medical malpractice. Briskman Briskman & Greenberg is a family-oriented law firm that understands just how painful your loss or injury can be. To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg
351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810
Chicago, IL 60654

Robert Briskman is a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer and Chicago medical malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

Inevitably, some form of driver inattention caused the elderly woman to drive down a busy city street the wrong way. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that an estimated 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes are due to driver inattention. Inattention – whether caused by picking something up in the car, using a cell phone, or drowsiness – seems to be the major causes of these types of crashes.

Although elderly drivers are noted as some of the safest drivers, studies show that these drivers become more accident-prone after they reach 74 years of age. Slower reflexes and eyesight problems associated with aging can cause more accidents. The NHTSA reports, “…older drivers accounted for 16 percent of all traffic fatalities, 15 percent of vehicle occupant fatalities and 19 percent of pedestrian fatalities.”

Driving the wrong way or on the wrong side of the road causes more than three percent of deadly accidents. A total of 53,000 pedestrians nationwide were hit and injured by vehicles according to the latest statistics. Urban areas, such as downtown Chicago, are more likely to have car-pedestrian collisions, and thus the need for everyone to take more safety precautions. PEDSAFE, an initiative of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, recommends that pedestrian safety is best when the sight distance and visibility of motor vehicles and pedestrians is improved. Traffic signals, road and intersection design, and education are crucial to continually inform drivers and walkers of their rights and responsibilities.

People who are injured in a pedestrian accident can suffer serious injuries. In a car-pedestrian accident, the auto driver’s insurance should be responsible for the bodily harm. A knowledgeable personal injury attorney can make sure you receive compensation for your injuries and pain and suffering that a negligent driver caused. The Chicago accident attorney and SuperLawyer Paul A. Greenberg, Esq. has years of experience handling accidents involving pedestrians. The Chicago car accident attorney team at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg works with experts, including accident reconstructionists and medical planners, to ensure that your rights to current and future expenses are vigilantly upheld.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg

351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810

Chicago, IL 60654

People with type 2 diabetes are two to four times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people without diabetes. Type 2 diabetes can also damage the eyes, kidneys, and blood vessels in the legs, increasing the risk of blindness, kidney failure, and below-the-knee amputation. Since 1987, death rates due to diabetes have increased by 45 percent, while death rates due to heart disease, stroke and cancer have declined.

Physicians can dramatically reduce the life-threatening complications of type 2 diabetes by ensuring that their patients’ diabetes (HbA1c), blood cholesterol, and blood pressure levels are under excellent control. Despite this fact, the American Diabetes Association reports that less than 10 percent of individuals with diabetes meet national guidelines for control of all three levels.

Some of this poor control is due to the patient’s failure to eat healthier, be more active and comply with prescription medications. But poor control can also be caused by doctors who fail to initiate and/or intensify appropriate medical therapy. Instead of increasing the dose of a medication or adding on a second drug, many patients whose diabetes, cholesterol and/or blood pressure levels are not adequately controlled are maintained on the same low dose. “Failure on the part of the physician to increase drug therapy where appropriate can put a patient’s health and safety at risk,” says medical malpractice and wrongful death attorney Robert I. Briskman, Esq.

If you or a loved one has type 2 diabetes and has suffered a heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, or leg amputation, a medical malpractice attorney can investigate whether your harm was caused by your doctor’s lack of proper treatment.

Chicago medical malpractice attorney Robert I. Briskman, Esq. is skilled in helping individuals and families who have been hurt by the negligence of medical professionals. The law firm of Briskman Briskman & Greenberg has decades of experience upholding a client’s rights to fair compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering, lost wages, and other costs associated with medical malpractice.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878).

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg

351 West Hubbard Street, Ste 810

Chicago, IL 60654

Famous international landmarks are being used to promote The Decade’s initiative, with a yellow road safety tag being projected on New York City’s Time Square, London’s Trafalgar Square, Geneva’s Jet d’Eau, and Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue. The Decade’s goals are to save five million lives and prevent 50 million auto accident injuries during the 10-year span. The U.S. has already donated $125 million to promote road safety in low to middle income countries that lack resources for safety initiatives. The Decade plans to voluntarily encourage the U.S. auto industry to donate $2 for every new vehicle sold to raise $140 million a year to fund even more road safety programs.

“Today countries and communities are taking action vital to saving lives on our streets and highways,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan. “Road traffic crashes are a growing health and development concern affecting all nations, and the Decade offers a framework for an intensified response.”

Shockingly, pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists account for half of the deaths worldwide from auto accidents. The Decade plans on using some of the monies raised to build bicycle, walking, and motorcycle lanes.

“None of us should have to bear the grief and devastation caused by a road traffic crash,” said Dr. Etienne Krug, WHO Director of the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability. “The steps outlined in the Global Plan for the Decade are immediately doable, and will do much to spare the suffering of so many.”

In Illinois, a handful of new laws are in effect in 2011 to protect bicyclists and pedestrians. Illinois Vehicle Code 625 ILCS 11-703 states that, “A person driving a motor vehicle shall not, in a reckless manner, drive the motor vehicle unnecessarily close to, toward, or near a bicyclist, pedestrian, or a person riding a horse or driving an animal drawn vehicle.” If this statute is violated and the victim incurs bodily harm or permanent disability, the driver will be charged with a Class 3 felony. Last year, the Illinois Vehicle Code was amended to safeguard pedestrians. Vehicle codes 625 ILCS 5/11-1002 and 625 ILCS 5/11-1002.5 mandate that automobiles “… stop and yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk rather than yielding the right-of-way by slowing down or stopping if need be.” This is especially important for many of the school zones that have children walking to and from school every day.

Chicago accident attorney and SuperLawyer Paul A. Greenberg, Esq. knows first-hand the dangers that pedestrians and cyclists encounter on a daily basis. In his law practice at Briskman Briskman & Greenberg, he counsels clients who are dealing with serious injuries and sometimes the death of a loved one because of a driver’s carelessness. Global initiatives in tandem with local efforts will push for more stringent measures to protect the clients he sees every day. Mr. Greenberg’s team of Chicago accident lawyers is known for fighting for their clients’ rights to compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering, lost wages, and other costs associated with vehicle accidents.

Paul Greenberg is a Chicago car accident lawyer and Chicago car accident attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

People with sleep apnea may fall asleep at abnormal times and experience daytime tiredness, morning headaches, lack of concentration and memory, as well as irritability and depression. Stanford University Medical School found that “drivers with untreated sleep apnea did worse on performance tests than healthy alert subjects whose blood alcohol concentrations was above the federal limit for driving a commercial motor vehicle.”

Truck accidents caused by sleep apnea are an unfortunate reality. Whether the driver was asleep, did not react quickly enough, or had problems focusing, individuals who need their questions answered after being involved in an accident should turn to competent legal counsel. FMSCA rules state that drivers with medical conditions or a history of a diagnosis that would hamper their ability to drive safely should not be allowed to drive a commercial vehicle. But because medical standards differ between states, it can be hard to ensure that the driver is healthy enough to be on the road.

The FMSCA’s latest safety facts show that 5,000 trucks drivers were in deadly crashes and 400,000 in accidents a year. And 200 hazmat trucks caused fatalities and 5,000 accidents. As the economy starts to recover, more goods are being bought and shipped by semi trucks and 18-wheelers. Compliance with safety standards becomes that much more important and driver adherence to maximum driving hours is vital. Electronic on-board recorders are being proposed by the FMSCA to ensure more compliance with the work hour maximums versus the current paper logs. Current logs must document hours driving, off-duty time and miles travelled.

As National Transportation Week kicks off on May 15, the Association for Global Logistics and Transportation (NDTA) will hold events around the country to highlight new transportation, travel and security processes as well as promote safety and improvements in the industry. Driver fatigue and sleep deprivation should be addressed. And those individuals affected by sleep apnea deserve to get the help they need to correct the issue.

But when faced with the aftermath of a truck accident, whether you are dealing with injuries or the loss of a loved one, knowledgeable legal counsel is key. In Illinois, Chicago truck accident attorney Paul A. Greenberg, Esq. will vigorously defend his clients’ rights to recover full compensation for medical bills, pain and suffering, as well as lost wages. The Briskman Briskman & Greenberg team of Chicago truck accident lawyers will research liability, the truck’s inspection history, service violations, and previous claims of negligence. In addition to being adept at taking on complex cases, they also counsel truck drivers in crashes caused by another driver’s negligence.

Briskman Briskman & Greenberg serves individuals and their families in the Chicago metro area and throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. They handle accidents that occur on highways such as the I-94 Tri-State Tollway, the I-90 Kennedy Expressway, the I-290 Eisenhower Expressway, and the I-55 Stevenson Expressway.

To learn more, visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com or call 877-595-HURT (4878)