A routine surgical procedure or hospital visit is anything but routine. Even the simplest procedure involves several hospital employees, members of the medical staff, and physicians. Patients are also treated with a variety of medications and sophisticated medical equipment.
At any point in the process, from diagnostic decisions to release from the hospital, preventable and negligent mistakes can lead to serious complications or even death. If you or a loved one suffered harm from negligent errors committed by doctors or hospital staff, you need legal help.
The hospital negligence lawyers at Rice Law have the resources to fight for your compensation. Call (410) 694-7291 today.
Prevalence of Hospital Negligence and Medical Errors
Studies show approximately 44,000 to 98,000 patients die each year from preventable hospital errors. Negligent mistakes by hospital employees and medical staff lead to severe medical consequences, increased medical expenses, and loss of income from prolonged illness.
Preventable Hospital Mistakes in Baltimore
Any hospital visit, surgical procedure, or medical test includes layers of interaction between the patient and many members of the hospital staff and the medical team. Many mistakes or errors can occur during this process.
Drug Interactions
Certain medications can dangerously interact with other drugs.
If a doctor prescribes a hazardous combination of medications or is unaware of what medications a patient is currently taking, medication errors can result. Medication errors can also stem from a failure to perform a comprehensive patient intake that asks about drug allergies and other issues.
Diagnostic Errors
Diagnostic errors can also lead to severe medical complications. Failing to diagnose a medical condition or potential medical complication can often result in serious harm.
Emergency Room Errors
These types of mistakes are more prevalent in an emergency room environment where the chaotic atmosphere leads to errors in judgment or hasty diagnoses.
Administrative Mistakes
Procedural or administrative mistakes can also occur. Severe hospital injuries may result from inaccurate or incomplete files or poor communication among staff members.
Unprofessional Conduct
Hospital personnel need to maintain a level of professionalism and precision to ensure a patient receives the proper care. Failure to adhere to strict protocols can increase the risks a patient faces during their stay at a hospital.
Lab and Pharmacy Errors
Other mistakes occur among staff that do not interact directly with the patient. Lab testing workers and pharmacy staff at a hospital can commit errors that affect the patient’s diagnosis or treatment.
Medical Equipment Errors
Failing to maintain or calibrate medical equipment can also result in serious harm, including incorrect radiation doses or malfunctioning alarms for dangerous drops in a patient’s vital signs.
Dirty Facilities
Hospital-acquired infections tend to spread because of unclean surfaces. This could be anything from high-touch points (door handles, light switches) not being properly cleaned and disinfected regularly, or because of unsterilized tools and surgical settings.
Dangerous Facilities
Even something as simple as a slip and fall or other premises dangers at the hospital can constitute negligence that our hospital negligence lawyers can help you seek damages for.
Infectious Outbreaks
When hospitals fail to follow proper isolation protocols or catch infectious diseases among their patients, they can lead to outbreaks. This can result in something like MRSA or the flu spreading throughout a hospital, causing illness and injury to patients and visitors.
Statute of Limitations
Maryland also has a statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims, so timing is important. You have 5 years from the date of the negligent conduct or 3 years from the discovery of the injury (whichever is shorter) to file a hospital negligence claim.
What is a Medical Malpractice Claim vs. a Hospital Negligence Case?
When we discuss “medical malpractice,” we usually mean that a medical professional violated their duty of care. This means, for example, a doctor violating the standards of medical professionals with similar training, experience, and licensure. Literally, it means they committed bad medical practice.
Hospital negligence, instead, refers to issues with the hospital – whether it be the facilities, management, or services provided there. This may involve medical malpractice – bad practices from medical professionals that work at the hospital – but it may involve simple negligence that has nothing to do with professional standards – such as dirty facilities.
What Do You Need to Prove in a Hospital Negligence Claim?
In Maryland, to be successful in a medical malpractice claim, four elements must be shown. These elements are a duty of care, a breach of that duty, a direct cause of the injury, and actual damages.
Duty
Hospital employees must provide care to their patients that meet the standards that a similarly qualified professional would meet under comparable circumstances.
This duty exists for all healthcare providers, but the standard of care is different depending on the responsibilities or occupation of the individual provider. This means that the duty of care for a surgeon is often different from that of a nurse.
Breach
Once the duty is established, you must prove how the nurse, doctor, or other hospital workers violated that duty. This breach is the core issue in a hospital negligence claim, such as failing to check your medical records before diagnosing you, mixing up medication, or failing to warn about a wet floor.
Causation
A successful claim also requires that negligent conduct is the direct cause of the patient’s injury. the healthcare provider’s negligent conduct must directly cause serious medical consequences for the court to hold them responsible.
Damages
Finally, the medical consequences or injuries the patient faced the need to result in actual damages. These can be economic damages, such as additional medical costs, physical therapy, and loss of income as well as non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering.
Proving Hospital Negligence Without Experts
Usually, in a medical malpractice case, you need other medical professionals with similar training and licensure to state what the duty of care was and explain how the provider’s care fell below those standards. With hospital negligence, the case often involves everyday mistakes that you do not need an expert for.
You may still need technicians or engineers to explain problems with testing equipment or other specialized equipment, but something as simple as failing to disinfect an operating theater between surgeries does not necessarily need an expert to explain to the jury what went wrong.
Other Evidence Needed
Other evidence used in these cases involves
- Your testimony about what happened to you
- Medical records showing your injuries or illnesses
- Records and duty logs for hospital workers
- Maintenance and repair logs for relevant machinery or repairs
- Testimony from employees or witnesses
- Security camera footage
- Evidence of damages (medical bills, pay stubs, etc.)
- And more.
Should You Sue for Hospital Negligence?
Hospital negligence can cause serious injuries, and you should never allow them to go unaddressed. Without a lawsuit, you may be the one to pay for harms you only suffered because of someone else’s mistakes.
Working with a lawyer to file a lawsuit may be the only way to recover damages and get these expenses and costs covered.
Do You Sue a Doctor or a Hospital?
Generally, hospital negligence claims go against the hospital. These issues are caused by their staff in many cases.
Other malpractice cases might be discussed alongside hospital negligence, and those malpractice claims might be filed against the specific care provider. If they were a hospital employee or they were using hospital staff during the negligent care, that might also give you grounds to sue the hospital.
Otherwise, errors committed solely by a medical professional might be against that individual doctor, nurse practitioner, physician’s assistant, etc.
Can You Sue for Hospital Negligence at Clinics or Other Facilities?
When we say “hospital negligence,” we merely mean negligence committed by whatever healthcare institution/building you are at. This can lead to lawsuits against hospitals, but it can also lead to claims against urgent care clinics, health clinics, doctors’ offices, and other facilities.
Even facilities providing things like X-Rays, MRIs, physical therapy, rehabilitation, or psychiatric/psychological services can be held liable for their mistakes and dangerous conditions.
Is There Insurance to Cover Hospital Negligence?
Providers often have medical malpractice insurance to cover their professional mistakes and pay damages to victims. Facilities also typically have insurance to cover their day-to-day operations and pay victims for other mistakes outside of malpractice.
This means that there is typically insurance available to cover your damages, no matter which type of case you ultimately need to file.
What Damages Can You Claim?
Most injury claims – including medical malpractice and hospital negligence claims – cover these kinds of damages when you prove negligence in court or accept a settlement:
- Additional medical care costs to treat the injuries or reverse negligent treatments
- The cost of any additional diagnostics, imaging, or testing to uncover the problems, including second opinions with another healthcare provider
- Lost wages stemming from the new injury
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Embarrassment
- Lost ability
- Lost chance at improved health or survival
- Damages from the victim’s death in deadly injury cases, such as funeral and burial costs
- And more.
What Kinds of Hospital Acquired Infections Can You Sue For?
There are many illnesses and infections you might receive in a hospital because of improper cleaning or contact with sick patients. If this results from negligence, you can potentially sue for them.
Whether from negligence or not, some of the most common examples of hospital acquired infections – a.k.a. healthcare-associated infections or “nosocomial infections”– are
- Staph infections and MRSA
- Surgical site infections
- Pneumonia
- Urinary-tract infections
- Bloodstream infections
- Other viruses, bacterial infections, or fungal infections.
Can You Sue Nonprofit or Charity Hospitals?
Yes. There are old laws in some states that used to prevent lawsuits for medical negligence or hospital negligence against charitable organizations and hospitals, but those rules no longer exist.
Healthcare mistakes and problems with a hospital’s facilities are usually the kinds of injuries you can sue for, even if the hospital was a charitable organization or nonprofit.
Contact Our Baltimore Hospital Negligence Injury Attorney Today
Call (410) 694-7291 today for a free case review with the hospital negligence lawyers at Rice Law.