When you needed immediate medical attention, you went to the emergency room, trusting to the skill and attention of the doctors and nurses there. Unfortunately, the care in emergency rooms may not always result in optimal outcomes. Errors may occur in the emergency room, resulting in poor care and even additional injury.
If you received poor care at an emergency room and need assistance seeking compensation for your injuries, please contact AccidentAttorneys.org today to speak with a local attorney.
Common Emergency Room Errors
Emergency room errors may occur in up to 18% of visitors to the emergency room (about 1 in 5). Most of these errors do not result in serious injury, but sometimes they represent serious medical malpractice, and you or a loved one may experience pain, disability, the need for additional medical care, and even death.
The most common types of emergency room errors include:
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Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose
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Improper treatment of your condition
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Improper medication or medication dose
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Failure to run tests, misreading tests, or forgetting to tell others about test results
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Delayed treatment
Sometimes these errors are confined to the emergency room. Other times, they may involve medical malpractice by other doctors and nurses in the hospital or even in your own doctor’s office.
Causes of Emergency Room Errors
Most of the errors caused in emergency rooms are human errors. People forget procedures or concepts, confuse patients, miscalculate dosage, and other similar errors.
About a quarter of emergency room errors are due to organizational problems, such as not having a clear chain of command or having proper procedures in place for shift handoffs.
Only a small number of errors are due to technical problems like equipment malfunction.
In many cases, the root cause of emergency room errors is understaffing of the emergency room. Hospitals may cut personnel to reduce the expenses of the emergency room, leaving it understaffed at times of peak demand.
Compensation for Emergency Room Errors
When you pursue an emergency room error lawsuit, you may be able to get compensation for all effects of your injury, including:
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Additional medical bills
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Lost wages due to prolonged hospital stay
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Diminished quality of life
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Pain and suffering
If you lost a loved one due to an emergency room error, a wrongful death lawsuit allows for different damages.
To learn what compensation may be available in your case, please contact AccidentAttorneys.org today to talk to a local attorney.
