Archive for July 2006
Demand for Legal Nurse Consultants at All-Time High
July 22, 2006, 12:47 pmIn operating this website we’ve been learning a lot about what’s involved in getting justice or pursuing claims when it comes to mold infestation. This article from the American Chronicle talks about one type of expert that can lay a major role, legal nurse consultants.
What Is a Legal Nurse Consultant?A legal nurse consultant is a registered nurse who uses existing expertise as a healthcare professional plus specialized training to consult on medical-related cases at fees of $100-$150/hour. Few attorneys know how to read medical records or understand the terminology and subtleties of healthcare issues to achieve the best results for their clients. A legal nurse consultant bridges that gap in the attorney’s knowledge. While the attorney is the expert on legal issues, the legal nurse consultant is the expert on nursing, the healthcare system and its inner workings.
According to the Houston Chronicle, “Of the approximately 900,000* attorneys in practice today, 25 percent deal with medical malpractice and personal injury cases.” These attorneys rely on specially trained Certified Legal Nurse Consultants to help them win their cases.
* According to the American Bar Association Market Research Department, in 2005 there are 1,104,766 attorneys in the U.S.
Who are Legal Nurse Consultants?
Legal nurse consultants live all over the U.S., rural or urban. Legal nurse consultants have consulted on cases as simple as a neck injury caused by an auto accident, as high-profile as the Rodney King case and as groundbreaking as Fen-Phen, Vioxx, silicone implants and toxic mold litigation.
Additionally, legal nurse consultants provide healthcare expertise for insurance companies, utilization review firms, government agencies, private corporations and hospitals both as staff members and consultants. The legal nurse consulting profession allows nurses many options for establishing a satisfying and profitable part-time or full-time consulting career.
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(posted in the legal, Resources category)
Infra-red thermography latest weapon in detecting mold growth
July 10, 2006, 2:43 pmThis is a fascinating article about a new technology to detect mold. It’s also interesting from the perspective of legal process and general work around mold remediation. Here’s a quote from the Naples Daily News article:
Florida’s tropical climate is ideal for many full-time and part-time residents as well as vacationers. Unfortunately, it’s also the perfect climate for a not-so-welcome visitor: mold.
The business of detecting and eradicating mold in both residential and commercial buildings is growing rapidly in the Southwest Florida marketplace. While some companies only do visual inspections, one Estero-based firm has hired nationally-renowned mold experts and purchased the latest technology to allow them to detect what the eye cannot see.
“Clean Air Inspections is a science-based organization that has fully-insured, certified inspectors that inspect homes and businesses for mold and other hidden allergens,” said Sam Chiodo, CEO of The Chiodo Companies, the parent company of Clean Air Inspections. “Mold and air quality issues are now top of mind for homeowners, business owners and insurers nationwide due in part to recent weather phenomena.”
Clean Air Inspections’ commitment to maintaining the highest standards has prompted Chiodo to search nationally for experts on mold. That search led him to Steven D. Parkhurst, a certified industrial hygienist with 19 years of experience.
Parkhurst has been called upon almost 250 times to provide expert witness testimony, field evaluations, written opinions, case review and arbitration hearings and has provided these services for various counties, states and legal jurisdictions throughout the United States and the Caribbean.
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(posted in the legal, Resources, News category)
More New Homes Contain Life-Threatening Defects
July 8, 2006, 7:39 pmHere’s a disturbing article from the Realty Times that talks about some of the problems plaguing new homes. To quote:
Quality Built’s study of new homes and condos in 27 states, constructed by more than 900 different builders, commonly found window flashing problems, improper roofing, missing structural hardware and other defects to be more prevalent in the eastern and southern states.
Rather than questionnaires used in other studies to sleuth quality construction, Quality Built says it used data collected by hands-on independent inspectors trained to identify high-risk construction defects.
Data for the study was gathered on 20,867 single-family and 11,128 multi-family homes inspected in 2005.
Among all homes, the three most common construction risks discovered in single-family homes were in the building envelope (41 percent), which could lead to moisture intrusion and mold; framing and structural elements (34 percent), which can affect a building’s integrity during rough weather conditions or earthquakes; and in the plumbing and electrical systems (8 percent).
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(posted in the Resources, News category)