Common Hospital Errors

Medical Negligence

The United States is having an epidemic and it has nothing to do with the bird flu or mad cow disease. Instead tens of thousands of people are experiencing adverse reactions and deaths from preventable medical errors during their hospital stay.

Do you have a Hospital Error lawsuit?

While you would like to think that U.S. hospitals have the best trained doctors and medical personnel and the most advanced technology – mistakes still happen. More people die from hospital errors than AIDS, breast cancer, and motor vehicle accidents.

Mistakes happen during hospital admission, during your hospital stay, and during and after hospital discharge.

Hospital admission
According to Archives of Internal Medicine, patient errors are first recorded upon admission to the hospital. Medications taken and allergy history is frequently omitted from charts which result in drug therapy problems ranging from discomfort to deterioration of the patient’s condition. In one study conducted at two prestigious teaching hospitals, results showed that about two out of every 100 admissions experienced a preventable adverse drug event.

There needs to be a system in place that improves the accuracy of hospital admissions medical history taking.

Surgical mistakes
Not only do patients suffer from drug interactions but they also suffer from surgeries gone wrong. These are not totally isolated incidents. In one northeast hospital, three different surgeons operated on three different patients on the wrong side of their brains. In a Florida hospital, a doctor amputated the wrong leg. In the Midwest, an elderly woman who went in to have her gall bladder removed had her kidney removed instead. In the heartland, an active military man who expected to have his cancerous testicle removed, had the healthy one removed instead. Patients in New York wake up to find foreign objects left in the cavities.

While you think these incidences might be exceptions, they still happen with alarming frequency.

Common errors after hospital discharge
There is no such thing as out of sight, out of mind. The transition between being a hospital patient to home living is a fragile one. Patients should not be shooed off the premises thinking they are home free.

Problems with prescription drugs caused the most problems. Medical errors could be reduced by evaluating them before discharge and monitoring them after their release. Patients and their advocates or caregivers should be educated about drug side effects and interactions.
Another problem is that there is often no communication between the medical team taking care of a patient in the hospital and the doctors who see them once they are released. Better communication should be promoted. Call now for your free consultation.

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