Emergency Room Mistakes That Lead to Serious Injuries
You go to an emergency room because you need immediate medical attention, often at a time when waiting for treatment could make your condition much worse. When an emergency room provider makes a preventable mistake, the consequences can include permanent injuries that make it impossible to earn a living, enjoy life, or even handle the simplest daily tasks.
If you’re living with a medical injury caused by a mistake in the emergency room, you deserve justice. Below, our attorneys explain the mistakes that can lead to these injuries and your options for seeking compensation.
What Emergency Room Mistakes Can Lead to Serious Injuries?
Emergency room mistakes can include diagnostic errors, inadequate testing, medication errors, poor monitoring, premature discharge, and treatment delays. No two errors are exactly alike, but the most significant mistakes occur when patients need time-sensitive care.
Emergency departments operate in demanding environments, but a hospital’s busyness doesn’t excuse it from its obligation to provide adequate care. Doctors and nurses must evaluate the information available to them and respond reasonably based on your symptoms, test results, medical history, and changes in your condition. When they miss symptoms or fail to fully assess your condition, the resulting errors can be devastating.
- Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose: A doctor may mistake signs of a heart attack, stroke, sepsis, internal bleeding, or another serious condition for something less urgent.
- Failure to order appropriate tests: Providers may fail to order necessary testing that could identify a dangerous condition.
- Medication errors: You may receive the wrong medication, an incorrect dose, or a drug that interacts dangerously with another medication or known allergy.
- Failure to monitor your condition: Doctors and nurses may overlook worsening symptoms or abnormal vital signs that should have prompted them to aggressively pursue a diagnosis right away.
- Delays in treatment: Waiting too long to provide medication, surgery, or another necessary intervention can allow a treatable condition to worsen.
- Premature discharge: An emergency room may send you home before your condition is stable or without adequately investigating symptoms that require further attention.
How Can Delayed Emergency Room Treatment Cause Harm?
Delayed care can allow a treatable condition to progress into a medical emergency that causes permanent damage. Conditions such as strokes, heart attacks, internal bleeding, sepsis, and certain infections can become substantially more dangerous as treatment is delayed.
Timing often becomes an important part of a malpractice investigation. Medical records can show when you arrived, what symptoms you reported, when medical staff evaluated you, when tests were ordered, and when treatment began. An attorney can compare that timeline with the treatment that appropriate medical care required.
Can an Emergency Room Discharge You Too Soon?
An emergency room can discharge you once providers reasonably determine that you do not require additional emergency treatment or hospitalization. However, discharging you without fully understanding your condition or forcing you out the door when you need to be hospitalized can have severe consequences.
Discharge instructions also matter. Medical providers should give you appropriate information about follow-up care and warning signs that require immediate medical attention. If the hospital fails to communicate critical information and you suffer additional harm as a result, that failure could play a major part in a medical malpractice claim.
When Does an Emergency Room Mistake Become Medical Malpractice?
An emergency room mistake may amount to malpractice if a healthcare provider fails to meet the applicable standard of care, but not every bad outcome establishes negligence.
In order for your claim to be successful, you’ll need evidence that the emergency room staff didn’t provide you with the basic standard of care. Causation also matters, as you’ll need to connect the medical error to your damages. The good news is that an attorney can handle every aspect of your case, from start to finish.
What Should You Do If You Suspect an Emergency Room Made a Serious Mistake?
If you suspect an error in the emergency room, your immediate priority should be to get the medical care you need. Seek appropriate treatment for continuing or worsening symptoms rather than waiting to determine whether malpractice occurred. When your condition is stable, it’s a good idea to explore your options with a medical malpractice attorney from our firm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is every emergency room mistake medical malpractice?
No. You generally need to show that a healthcare provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and that the failure caused you additional harm.
Can you sue an emergency room for a missed diagnosis?
You may have a claim if a reasonably careful provider should have identified the condition or ordered further testing and the missed diagnosis caused additional injury.
Who may be responsible for an emergency room error?
Depending on the circumstances, responsibility may involve a physician, nurse, hospital, medical group, or another healthcare provider.
What compensation may be available after an emergency room injury?
A medical malpractice claim may seek compensation for damages such as additional medical expenses, lost income, reduced earning capacity, and pain and suffering.
How Can Our Firm Help After an Emergency Room Error?
Emergency room malpractice cases require a detailed review of both the medicine and the law. An attorney can obtain your medical records, reconstruct the treatment timeline, work with qualified medical experts, determine whether providers departed from the applicable standard of care, and evaluate how that failure affected your health.
Reach Out to Fogg Law Group Today
If you’ve been the victim of a medical error, now is the right time to reach out to Fogg Law Group. Our team of dedicated attorneys will work tirelessly to help you build a winning case for compensation. Contact us today for a free consultation.