Top 3 Types of Medical Malpractice in Hospitals

 Posted on July 12, 2022 in Workers' Compensation

When you go to a hospital for medical care, you expect to be in a safe place. You should be able to automatically trust that the doctors and other providers are being careful to provide you with safe treatment. Unfortunately, the labor shortage has hit hospitals just as much as it has hit restaurants and retail businesses. There is a significant nursing shortage. However, being short-staffed does not excuse medical malpractice. A hospitalized patient can do very little to take care of themself and must rely on doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals like Certified Nursing Assistants. When these providers fail to perform their jobs in a manner that is safe for patients, they may ultimately do more harm than good. If you were harmed while staying in a hospital, an attorney may be able to help you recover compensation. 

Common Forms of Malpractice in a Hospital Setting

Some types of medical errors are more common than others, especially in a hospital inpatient setting. Medical malpractice in a hospital may take the form of: 

• Medication errors - One of the most common types of malpractice that can happen to an inpatient is a medication error. Being given the wrong medication, or the wrong dose of the right medication, can cause serious harm or even cause a patient to crash. Nurses may mistakenly give one patient’s medication to another patient, or the wrong medication may be pulled or ordered because many drugs have similar names. Patients may be inadvertently given a drug that they are allergic to. Medication errors can even be fatal. 

• New medication risks - Especially when a patient has been prescribed a new medication that they have not taken before, they should be closely monitored in case they do not react well to it. Failing to keep an eye on a patient who is taking a new drug can cause complications or adverse reactions to go unnoticed. 

• Failure to monitor - If someone is sick enough to be in the hospital, they are sick enough to be checked up on routinely. Patients with cardiac problems should be placed on continuous monitoring so that an unsafe heart rate or other dangerous issues can be caught immediately. A sick patient can go downhill very quickly, and the faster their decline is noticed, the better their outcome is likely to be. 

While it is unavoidable that some hospitalized patients will experience complications or negative outcomes even with good care, some serious health problems may have been caused by malpractice. 

Call a Kane County Medical Malpractice Attorney

Kinnally Flaherty Krentz Loran Hodge & Masur P.C. is passionate about helping patients who have been harmed by medical malpractice. Our skilled Aurora medical malpractice lawyers can begin investigating your case immediately to determine whether malpractice may have occurred as soon as you contact us. Call 630-907-0909 for a free consultation. 

Source:

https://journals.lww.com/nursing/fulltext/2016/08000/simple_steps_to_reduce_medication_errors.16.aspx