When it comes to medical malpractice, one of the top causes is just miscommunication within the hospital setting. In fact, some reports claim that communication failures are related to a full 27% of all medical malpractice cases. They may not solely cause these incidents, but they are at least a contributing factor.
How would these communication errors take place? Let’s look at a few examples below:
The wrong medical records
One example could be if a doctor is provided with the wrong medical records. Maybe two patients have a similar name and someone accidentally switches the files. The doctor doesn’t even know that the mistake has been made, but they are operating with the wrong information.
Handoff procedures
In some situations, there could be miscommunication about who is supposed to be providing care for a patient. Maybe two nurses don’t communicate about handing off care, so a patient is neglected for an entire shift. They could suffer serious harm or complications could arise without any medical professionals present.
Inaccurate early diagnosis
Finally, a doctor may be assigned to a patient and simply told that the patient is having the wrong issue. For instance, an ER doctor may be told that someone is having a heart attack, so they begin trying to offer treatment, but that person was never having a heart attack to begin with. The hospital can be very chaotic, so these types of mistakes occur.
Those who have suffered harm due to miscommunication errors and medical malpractice need to know exactly what legal steps they can take to seek proper compensation.