Mass. radiology provider may be liable for ‘unavailable’ IR physician

The Massachusetts Court of Appeals has ruled that a Massachusetts radiology services provider could be held liable for failing to provide a patient with access to an on-call interventional radiologist, according to a report published October 28 by Law.com.

The decision states that Saint Vincent Radiological Associates (SVRA) in Worcester had a contractual agreement with Saint Vincent Hospital to provide an on-call interventional radiologist to the hospital. A suit brought by plaintiff Dolores Brown stated that her husband, Duane Brown, presented in the emergency room and needed a cholecystostomy procedure to drain an infection in his gallbladder, but that SVRA said that the on-call interventional radiologist was "unavailable at that time and would not be available for another three days," Law.com reported. Duane Brown was transferred to UMass Memorial Medical Center but died before the cholecystostomy could be performed.

A lower court had ruled that SVRA was obligated to provide services to the hospital but was not obligated to provide the cholecystostomy. But the presiding judge at the Massachusetts Court of Appeals, Associate Justice Gregory I. Massing, and fellow judges Sookyoung Shin and Andrew D'Angelo disagreed, writing in the decision that SVRA "wasn't entitled to summary judgment on the ground that it owed no duty to Brown whatsoever" and that "the negligence in this case may be attributable to SVRA as an entity, rather than to any individual physician, [but] does not relieve SVRA of liability."

"We have no difficulty concluding that a hospital with an emergency department owes a duty of reasonable care to patients admitted on an emergency basis," Massing and colleagues wrote. "To the extent the standard of reasonable emergency care requires having certain radiology services available, and to the extent SVRA was required by contract to provide those services on behalf of Saint Vincent -- both of which are contested issues for trial -- SVRA owed a duty of care to patients to provide those services. The contract required SVRA to assume duties to Brown recognized at common law -- no more, but no less."