We all rely on emergency departments at one time or another to address an immediate medical need. Such reliance often means that Cleveland-area emergency rooms can become overcrowded and potentially understaffed. While doctors, nurses, and other professional staff strive to provide the best care possible, the reality is that mistakes can and do happen. Unfortunately, it is usually the patient who suffers as the result of such medical errors.
Tittle & Perlmuter is a Cleveland medical malpractice law firm that specializes in representing clients who have sustained serious injuries as the result of emergency room errors. If substandard care has harmed you, or a member of your family, our emergency room error lawyers can review what happened, conduct an independent investigation into what went wrong, and represent you in seeking full and fair compensation for your losses.
What Are the Most Common Types of Medical Errors Made in Emergency Rooms in Cleveland?
The typical Cleveland emergency room is a high-pressure, high-stakes environment. Every decision that a doctor or staff member makes can affect whether or not a patient lives or dies. As a matter of law, however, being under pressure is not a justification for medical mistakes that fundamentally compromise a physician’s oath to “do no harm.”
With that in mind, some of the more common medical errors in Cleveland hospital emergency rooms that we see with our clients include:
- Misdiagnosis: By some estimates, roughly 1 in 20 emergency room patients in the United States are misdiagnosed. This may not sound that bad until you realize that represents millions of patients each year. Misdiagnosis may happen for several reasons. The overworked emergency department staff may be too quick to make a diagnosis before ordering all of the necessary tests (or waiting for the results of such tests). In some cases, the staff fails to take a complete patient history, leading doctors to miss an obvious sign as to the patient’s problem.
- Delayed Treatment: Emergency department under-staffing in Cleveland hospitals also frequently leads to delayed treatment for those patients who do receive a correct diagnosis. Depending on the patient’s condition, even a delay of a few hours may cause their condition to worsen or cause permanent impairment–or even death.
- Botched Procedure: Contrary to what you might think from watching television medical dramas, emergency room doctors are not masters of every procedure that may need to be performed on a patient. In the rush to quickly treat patients, doctors and nurses may perform fairly standard procedures incorrectly.
- Medication Errors: Another common, yet preventable, emergency room error is administering the wrong medication to a patient. This includes not only giving the patient the wrong medication, but also the right medication at the wrong dosage. In other cases, an emergency department commits malpractice by simply failing to provide any medication at all.
- Premature Discharge: Emergency rooms in Cleveland hospitals often have more patients than they can safely handle. This creates pressure to see, treat, and discharge patients as quickly as possible. This creates a substantial risk, however, of sending a patient home before they are properly diagnosed or given the correct treatment.
- Laboratory Mistakes: Although most people tend to associate emergency room errors with what doctors and nurses do, you also need to consider the staff members responsible for performing and analyzing a host of diagnostic tests. Many Cleveland hospital emergency rooms make laboratory mistakes, whether it is ordering the wrong tests, failing to properly communicate test results, or simply misinterpreting test results.
Why You Need an Emergency Room Error Attorney
Under Ohio law, a patient injured due to negligence on the part of a Cleveland hospital emergency room can seek financial compensation for their out-of-pocket and other losses arising from the medical error. The rules governing these medical malpractice claims are complicated, however, and it is far too easy for an injured patient or family member to get tripped up on some of the legal requirements. This is where working with an experienced Cleveland emergency room error lawyer can prove invaluable.
Some of the things you need to know about filing a medical malpractice claim due to emergency room error include:
- Statute of Limitations: Ohio law applies a deadline specific to medical malpractice claims. This statute of limitations is one year from the date the underlying medical error occurred. In some cases, you can delay the start of this one-year clock to when you actually discovered the emergency room error. But except in cases involving a doctor leaving a foreign object inside of you, you cannot file a medical malpractice claim more than 4 years after you received treatment.
- Affidavit of Merit: Unlike most other types of personal injury claims, Ohio law requires a medical malpractice plaintiff to include an “Affidavit of Merit” signed by a qualified medical professional as part of their lawsuit. This affidavit explains how the defendant emergency room staff deviated from the accepted standard of care and caused the plaintiff’s injury.
If you have additional questions about the process of filing a medical malpractice lawsuit in Ohio, or you simply wish to sit down and discuss your emergency room error case with a qualified attorney, call Tittle & Perlmuter today to schedule a free case strategy session.
