Every day, thousands of people are admitted to an emergency room or to a hospital for an extended stay. These people report to the hospital to receive top notch, knowledgeable medical treatment and put their trust in hospital staff for exactly that. Unfortunately, hospital employee errors are a common occurrence for a variety of reasons. Below are common types of hospital employee errors:

Medication Errors

This is especially prevalent in newer staff, but it could happen to employees of any caliber. Medication errors, such as dispensing wrong doses, wrong kinds, or simply neglecting to give a patient medication is a common error that could lead to serious injury for the patient.

Charting Errors

Patients have their own personal file with extensive medical details to aid hospital employees in treating the patient. When the wrong information is written in these charts, charts get switched, or don’t get filled out at all, vital information for a patient’s care and survival is missing and leaves them at risk. These errors can be clerical or simply the result of neglect.

Dropping Errors

Dropping errors often occur when being transported throughout the hospital. A hospital employee will perhaps be moving too quickly or carelessly, resulting in a dropped patient. The impact, especially considering a patient’s medical state, can cause serious physical injury.

Infection

Normally stemming from slow care or lack of maintenance, infections in hospitals as a result of a hospital employee’s negligence are far too common. In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, over 772,000 patients will experience an infection, major or minor, in a hospital. Dirty equipment, conflicting drugs, and unsanitary conditions can often be the cause.

Misdiagnosis

Particularly when the symptoms are similar to a general disease, it is not uncommon for a hospital employee to diagnose a patient with the simplest condition, rather than the correct one, which would have taken more time to find. Misdiagnosis can lead to unnecessary treatment which could lead to infection, disability, and even death.

Neglect

Hospital employees should be in sync when it comes to patient care. In many cases, the care is uncoordinated and results in some patients being neglected for hours on end.

The causes for most of these errors often comes down to one or more of various factors. New employees without proper training, over-crowded hospitals, and overworked employees can all result in these errors. However, these are no excuse for lack of proper treatment.

IF you or a loved one has recently been admitted to a hospital and have fallen victim to any of the errors above, you need to speak with a top-rated Birmingham personal injury lawyer who could help. Contact the law office of Salter Ferguson, LLC. today to schedule an appointment and discuss your rights. You may be eligible for compensation.