Medical Malpractice Lawyer Serving Vermont

Emergency room errors can provide the basis for medical malpractice claims. These errors usually take the form of failing to diagnose the patient’s condition in a timely and accurate manner, so further damage or injury can be avoided. Or the error may be in the actual treatment rendered to the patient. If you believe that you may have been the victim of an emergency room error, you should immediately contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney.

The emergency room (ER) is the triage center of the hospital. It is the responsibility ofthe health care providers in the ER to process the patients in a timely manner, gather relevant information regarding the patients medical history, history of the events that brought the patient to the emergency room, access the relevant records ofpast medical treatment, properly classify the patient’s condition so that the patients that need treatment the quickest can get a timely evaluation and treatment.

Most emergency rooms at tertiary medical facilities are staffed by emergency room doctors or hospitalists. Some emergency rooms are staffed by a PA. All should have nurses who perform various functions. No matter the credentials of the health care providers working in the ER, they all must adhere to the applicable standards of care. If they do not, the hospital could be liable for their actions or failures.

One of the most frustrating areas of medical malpractice involving emergency room is when the emergency care advisors do not listen carefully to what the patient is telling them, and/or do not give due weight to the fact that patients generally know their own bodies and instinctively know that the health care provider is off-track in their evaluation. Although health care providers are given wide latitude in using their judgment to formulate an initial differential diagnosis and plan of treatment, they sometimes can improperly ignore or discount certain information, which can cause life-altering consequences or even death to the patient.

Similarly, the failure of emergency room providers to access and/or take action concerning certain prior treatment records can be particularly frustrating, as further damage or injury could have been easily avoided if they were timely accessed or given proper attention. Other examples of ER errors include the failure to order the appropriate testing promptly, failure to give sufficient significance to those test results, or misinterpreting them altogether, and failing to admit the patient to the hospital and sending them home instead.

David has successfully handled all of these types of cases involving emergency room errors.