A heightened gross negligence standard's applicability to teleradiologists covering the hospital emergency department may have influenced a $15.5 million jury award in a Georgia radiology malpractice lawsuit, according to a report published April 4 by Law.com.
The case stemmed from an overnight remote radiology read for Gwinnett Medical Center (GMC) in 2018. At GMC, the emergency department physician ordered numerous radiology studies, including a CT cervical spine, for the patient who had fallen down the stairs at his daughter's home and came into the hospital wearing a cervical collar.
In a Law.com analysis, Attorney Daniel Moriarty with Moriarty Injury Lawyer and in collaboration with Moore Hall said the legal team leveraged a 2024 Georgia Court of Appeals ruling to establish gross negligence against the defendants, Quality Nighthawk Teleradiology Group and its remote employee teleradiologist Thomas Bryce, MD, according to Moriarty. The report also explained four key points made during the jury trial:
- Based on the teleradiologist's preliminary report noting only "degenerative changes," a GMC emergency department physician removed the patient's cervical collar. Within hours the patient became a quadriplegic and died nearly three years later.
- Representing the estate of David G. Bochenek, the plaintiff team pointed out that the Quality Nighthawk employee's "normal" preliminary report differed from the emergency department radiologist's final report that "noted abnormalities on the CT Spine, [including] disc widening and possible fractures." In light of the discrepant finding, the team informed jurors that the hospital radiologist issued a subsequent variance report in the institution's PeerVue software to notify providers of the change in radiology reads, according to the report.
- An audit showed that the teleradiologist read two of the CTs in about five minutes, Moriarty continued. "A piece of medical literature -- used to cross the defendant in our case in chief -- showed that it takes the average radiologist, in New Zealand where the study was [conducted], longer than 15 minutes to read both of those scans."
- Quality Nighthawk deviated from the standard of care, according to the report.
"Those studies were read by an American board-certified radiologist, who happened to live in Thailand, and whose company covered middle-of-the-night reads for GMC and other hospitals across the United States," Moriarty explained. He noted that, unlike prior case law that required the provider to be physically located in the emergency department for gross negligence to apply, the July 2024 ruling found that it did not matter where a person is located when they provide emergency medical care to a patient located in the emergency department.
Defense counsel with Hall Booth Smith has retained appellate counsel on behalf of Quality Nighthawk Teleradiology Group, Law.com reported.
