Emergency Room Errors
The emergency room is quite possibly the most disorganized, least controlled place in an entire hospital. This is due, in part, to the complete lack of predictability in how many people will have health emergencies on any given day or night. As a result of this unpredictability and chaos, many of the worst hospital errors occur in emergency rooms.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007, 115,300,000 people are treated in emergency rooms across the country on an annual basis. While the general standard of care for medical care in the United States is high, accidents and incidents of malpractice do still exist in hospitals.
The most common hospital and doctor errors are equally as common or likely in the hospital’s emergency room as they are anywhere else in the hospital. The most common errors include:
- Medication errors
- Prescription errors
- Bacterial infections
- Birth injuries
- Omissions
- Diagnosis errors
- Negligence
- Patient “dumping”
Emergency room errors are less frequently discussed than other incidents of medical malpractice and negligence. These errors are frequently underreported to the media and so they are rarely heard about on the news.
Leading causes of emergency room medical errors are understaffed emergency rooms and ill-equipped emergency rooms. These two problems, as well as other hospital errors, lead to the deaths of a quarter of a million people from medical malpractice related injuries in a single year. Almost half of those injuries occur in emergency rooms.
Contact a Pennsylvania Personal Injury Attorney
If you have been injured by an emergency room error, contact the Pennsylvania personal injury attorneys of Lowenthal & Abrams, P.C. today at 610-667-7511.