Preventable Medical Errors Made in the Emergency Department
By their nature, emergency rooms are chaotic places. Medical staff receive patients from all walks of life with a range of injuries from cuts and lacerations to heart attack or stroke. Even in an environment of chaos and confusion, doctors call upon their years of study and training, and their skill acquired over their years of practice to make split-second decisions about the appropriate care for a patient without knowing anything about their background or medical history. Sometimes, in an emergency room situation doctors or other medical professionals make mistakes and patients end up suffering further injury.
A report published by the American College of Emergency Physicians, America’s Emergency Care Environment, A State-by-State Report Card 2014, gave the overall environment in which the emergency care system operates with a D+, which is an almost failing grade. The D+ grade is, unfortunately, even lower than the C- grade from the 2009 report. Among the individual states, Washington, D.C. ranked in first place with Wyoming in last place in the rankings of the best emergency departments.
While doctors and the other medical professionals that work in the ER are expected to follow the accepted standard of care for their patients, the standard of care for the ER is, for obvious reason, not as high as you would find in a doctor’s office. Emergency rooms are equipped to diagnose the problem, stabilize the patient and then refer them to the appropriate follow up care. If a patient suffers an injury in the medical department because of a doctor’s negligent actions, or their failure to act, the injured patient may have grounds to take legal action against the medical professional.
An experienced D.C. medical malpractice attorney would conduct a thorough investigation of the incident. They would call upon the services of a medical expert who would be able to provide testimony about the accepted standard of care, and how it was breached and caused injury even in an emergency department.
Despite the chaos and the stressful environment of the emergency department, doctors are still expected to allow their best judgement to prevail and they are expected to comport with the accepted standards of care for their specialty in their region. Preventable medical errors take place every day in hospitals across this country, and they have become the third leading cause of death. In the emergency department there are many opportunities for mistakes whether it be a misdiagnosis or taking too long to treat a patient, these errors can become deadly.
To find out more, please contact Paulson & Nace, PLLC, or call 202-463-1999.
Christopher T. Nace works in all practice areas of the firm, including medical malpractice, birth injury, drug and product liability, motor vehicle accidents, wrongful death, and other negligence and personal injury matters.
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