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What is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice is a legal term that describes the failure of a medical provider to meet accepted standards of medical care and safety, causing injury to the patient. A medical malpractice claim or lawsuit occurs when the injured patient or family members pursue a formal legal action against the medical provider.

Medical malpractice can arise from a number of different situations, including:

  • Physician Error
    Doctors are on the front line of medical care and, as a result, any error on their part can have serious consequences. Busy doctors who fail to thoroughly listen to patients may miss key symptoms and incorrectly diagnose a serious illness. Physicians who misread test results or incorrectly interpret directions from another healthcare professional can prescribe an inappropriate course of treatment and fail to properly care for the problem at hand. When a doctor fails to correctly diagnose a patient’s symptoms, serious illnesses such as cancer or heart failure can go unnoticed – and the patient may lose valuable treatment opportunities. Often, a lack of proper communication or a doctor’s failure to really listen to the patient’s complaint is to blame.
  • Hospital Negligence
    A Harvard University public health associate professor that reviewed published studies determined approximately 181,000 people are injured each year as a result of mistakes at U.S. hospitals. Hospitals are responsible for the care provided by the professionals they employ, including doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. According to an Institute of Medicine report, 90 percent of the hospital deaths that can be attributed to medical errors each year stem from failed systems and procedures. When poorly established policies for certain medical situations cause serious injury, or a lack of sufficient nurses prevents the proper monitoring of a patient’s condition, hospital negligence may have occurred.
  • Emergency Room Errors
    Emergency rooms are high-stress environments and the opportunity for mistakes is high. Most ERs have clearly established procedures to avoid error – but when these aren’t properly followed, the repercussions can be deadly. Long waits without adequate assessment can leave a heart attack victim languishing during the most critical window for treatment, and lack of appropriate triage or waiting room evaluation can cause serious complications and unnecessary suffering. Emergency room wait times have increased steadily across the country, even for critically ill patients. A study by the Harvard Medical School found that Americans had 36 percent longer ER waits in 2004 than they did in 1997. The average wait time for a heart attack patient in an ER in 2004 was 20 minutes, compared to 8 minutes in 1997 — an increase of 150 percent.
  • Medication Errors
    A 2006 study found that medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at least 1.5 million people every year. That study found an estimated 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries annually in hospitals. Another 800,000 injuries occur in long-term care settings, and about 530,000 occur among Medicare recipients in outpatient clinics.
  • Wrongful Death
    When the complications arising from a hospital or doctor error result in the patient’s death, the surviving loved ones may have grounds for a wrongful death suit. A study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that as many as 98,000 wrongful deaths occur each year at U.S. hospitals because of medical errors.

Medical malpractice is an ongoing problem. Nearly 16,000 medical malpractice payments were made on behalf of licensed health care practitioners in 2006, according to the National Practitioner Database, a federal agency that tracks malpractice payments. Doctors accounted for eight out of 10 of the malpractice payments, followed by dentists and nurses. Five percent of physicians with the largest malpractice payments accounted for one-third of the total dollars paid by doctors.

If you have concerns about your medical care, a medical malpractice attorney can help evaluate the circumstances of your loved one’s injury or illness. A medical malpractice attorney will work with accredited medical experts to evaluate whether healthcare standards were met and assess what went wrong and why. 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 more information, please contact Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C. for a free, no-obligation consultation at 877.420.1269.