Emergency Room Errors

Emergency rooms are high-pressure environments where quick decisions and quick action are vital. An error in judgment can have life-changing consequences, and medical staff must take all necessary steps to avoid any mistakes. However, mistakes happen all too frequently in such a stressful atmosphere, and medical professionals fail to provide accepted standards of care in the rush to diagnose and treat. Unfortunately for patients, those errors are among the most serious.

In the past decade the number of emergency rooms in the United States has declined, creating more pressure and overcrowding on the remaining emergency departments, according to a 2008 National Center for Health Statistics report. There are nearly 120 million visits to hospital emergency rooms each year, equating to about 40 visits per every 100 people, the report said.

Crowding in emergency rooms reduces the quality and promptness of treatment, including treatment for serious conditions such as heart attacks. In fact, one of the most common emergency room errors is the failure to properly treat heart attack victims. Often symptoms are mistaken for less serious conditions such as heartburn, and patients may be released with nothing more than a prescription for antacids.

Heart attack victims may also face life-threatening delays in the ER before seeing a doctor. A 2004 study showed that one-fourth of heart attack victims had to wait just under an hour before receiving any treatment. While a patient suffering a less serious ailment might not be significantly worse after an hour wait, heart attacks require immediate treatment – and the patient’s survival rate goes down with every minute that passes.

Other common emergency room errors include:

• Symptoms not properly diagnosed because the patient doesn’t see an actual doctor. In the busy ER, some patients may be seen by other medical staff, including nurses, who do not have the same depth of training or education as a medical doctor. These staff may be perfectly adequate to handle less serious injuries or illnesses, but they may miss signs of serious conditions requiring more complicated and urgent care.
• Tests not ordered or read correctly. An ER doctor facing a busy load of patients may not order routine tests, or may interpret the results too quickly, resulting in an incorrect diagnosis.
• Insufficient staff. When there aren’t enough nurses to monitor vital signs or respond to patients, or when there aren’t enough doctors to treat all urgent patients in a timely manner, medical conditions can worsen quickly.
• Improper procedures. Hospitals have very specific processes in place for handling medications, installing safety equipment, and maintaining sanitary conditions. Within the high-stress, urgent environment of the ER, staff can forget to follow certain steps or may skip them in the interest of time, and the patient may suffer as a result. According to an Institute of Medicine study, 90 percent of the hospital deaths attributable to medical errors are caused by failed systems and procedures.

A medical malpractice attorney with experience in emergency room error claims can help evaluate the circumstances of your injury. A lawyer will work with accredited medical experts to evaluate whether healthcare standards were met and provide you with your legal options.

If you have concerns about your emergency room care, please contact Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C. for a free, no-obligation consultation at 877.420.1269. Please keep in mind that there are strict deadlines for filing medical malpractice actions. The statute of limitations may be running on your claim, so time is of the essence.

For nearly three decades, the attorneys at Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C. have represented medical malpractice victims across Illinois, including but not limited to Chicago, Lake County, Cook County, Aurora, Rockford, Naperville, Joliet, Springfield, North Peoria, Peoria, Elgin, Waukegan, DuPage County, Will County, Kane County, Winnebago County, McHenry County, Madison County, and St. Clair County.