When something goes wrong medically, it will often go wrong at just about any point in the process of being diagnosed to being treated.
Generally speaking, the kinds of errors that are most commonly made in the health care system are technical errors, misdiagnosis, failure to prevent injuries, and medication errors. While many people think that medication errors should lead the pack in terms of medical malpractice, they actually rank the lowest and come in at about 10 percent according to a study by the Institute of Medicine. Technical errors were rated at 44 percent, misdiagnosis at 17 percent, and failing to prevent injury came in at 12 percent.
“The most disturbing fact is that virtually all of the errors cited were thought to have been preventable,” said Bradley J. Hofland, a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer. Other errors included patients reacting badly to drugs that didn’t have a previous history of allergies. Generally speaking, these kinds of misunderstandings are considered to be just a small part of the problem and other organizations have concluded that patients experience slip-ups in other ways; such as an error in administration, a failure in communication, erroneous lab results, and malfunctioning medical equipment.
“In addition, medical errors don’t tend to just happen in a hospital, and may arise in a physician’s office, an operating room, a clinic, the ER, at a drug store/pharmacy, at home, in a lab, or a nursing home,” added Hofland.
Many people don’t realize that misdiagnosis is classified as one of the most costly forms of medical errors simply because it often leads to wrong medical treatments, delayed treatment or even no treatment because of a misdiagnosis. “Be aware that there are also an increasing number of people who attempt to self-diagnose by surfing for conditions on the Internet,” indicated Bradley J Hofland, a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer.
Aside from that form of misdiagnosis, there are some conditions that just don’t get pinpointed, particularly if there are no major symptoms presenting. “Even if there are symptoms, this does not mean that there won’t be a wrong diagnosis if the disease mimics something else. Along the same lines, there is also a chance of a right diagnosis, but the wrong subtype of disease,” explained Hofland. Included in this area of misdiagnosis is also the fact that a disease, if diagnosed, may have a variety of companion complications that need to be dealt with and treated.
Cases such as the ones mentioned here should be discussed with a highly skilled attorney, familiar with this area of the law. The only way to obtain justice in situations like this is to seek redress through the courts for personal injuries.
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