According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are over 139 million emergency room visits in the United States each year. With so many people visiting the emergency room, there are bound to be some mistakes made along the way.
Continue reading to learn some of the reasons why emergency room negligence occurs.
Reasons for Emergency Room Negligence
More Patients—Less Space
According to the CDC, the number of annual emergency room visits continues to rise, but the number of emergency departments currently in operation is decreasing.
Because the number of patients is increasing but the number of facilities is decreasing, this puts undue strain on the emergency rooms that are currently in operation. Since emergency medical personnel are overwhelmed by the growing number of patients they’re expected to treat, a greater number of mistakes are made in haste.
Conclusions Are Made Too Quickly
In relation to more patients visiting emergency rooms and fewer facilities available to visit, emergency room medical personnel often come to diagnoses too quickly without exhausting all possible ailments before coming to a conclusion.
This is particularly common in diagnosing heart attacks or strokes. Even if a patient displays symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, emergency room professionals are likely to dismiss these as possible ailments if the patient is younger than the typical victim or is female.
Medical Staff Don’t Always Communicate Effectively
The medical staff in emergency rooms typically work hard to communicate effectively with one another, but unfortunately, that’s not always the case. It’s common for a patient to tell their nurse information about their medical history and then assume the information is relayed to the physician.
With the prevalence of technology rising in medical settings, much of patients’ data is recorded digitally. Prior to the existence of modern technology, nurses needed to speak directly with physicians in order to convey information from patients. Now, everything is entered into a digital system, but not all physicians have the time or remember to check the system before seeing patients.
Let Us See If We Can Help
If you’ve endured an ailment or failed to have an ailment properly treated due to an emergency room medical error, you may be entitled to compensation. Our attorneys are highly skilled in the area of medical malpractice and have helped many other people just like you obtain justice. Let us see if we can help you, too. Don’t wait—contact our office with your case right away.
Contact the medical malpractice attorneys at Garau Germano, P.C. today by calling to discuss the details of your case.