On January 31, 2018, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York announced that he and the state legislature had come to terms on a bill covering a misdiagnosis of cancer. The bill, which became law, allows for a 2 1/2-year window for a patient to bring malpractice cases involving a cancer misdiagnosis. The law stipulates that the negligence cannot have occurred more than seven years prior to a suit being filed. Previously, the clock for medical malpractice involving cancer misdiagnosis started when the misdiagnosis occurred— meaning patients were not able to bring claims if they discovered a potential medical error after the window closed. Included in the law is a provision for people whose statute of limitations ran out in the last 10 months to get an additional six-month window to sue.
There are multiple opportunities to address ‘missed opportunities’ when it comes to cancer diagnoses and treatment. As Lyratzopoulos and colleagues (British Journal of Cancer, 2015) note, while not all such ‘missed opportunities’ will result in lesser outcomes for patients, all preventable delays should be avoided wherever possible. The authors point to 3 crucial time points where ‘missed opportunities’ may occur:
There are often multiple reasons for failure to make a cancer diagnosis which can be related to patient, provider and system factors and can happen at any of the above time points. Lyratzopoulos et al. note that a multi-disciplinary approach is required to have an effect on missed diagnoses:
As is the case for safety interventions in general, identification of instances where missed opportunities have occurred is a pre-requisite for motivating and guiding organisational learning and improvement efforts and service redesign.
Evaluating the Medical Malpractice System and Options for Reform.
Who is Lavern? (NY Daily News, January 29, 2018)
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