Personal Injury Law

Emergency Room Deaths Caused by Medical Malpractice

By Ben Glass

According to a 2007 statistic released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 115 million Americans receive treatment in emergency rooms each year. According to a report from the Journal of the American Medical Association, more than 225,000 people die each year as a result of medical malpractice. Nearly half of those deaths are because of emergency room errors.

According to the report, the emergency rooms’ hectic, stressful environment in combination with long work hours for medical professionals can lead to a wide variety of medical errors that can lead to medical malpractice. Errors such as incorrect diagnosis or lack of diagnosis for serious, life-threatening diseases or infections, delay of vital treatment because of overcrowding, dosage errors for prescriptions or medications, diagnostic test omissions, and/or failure to consult specialists.

A Health Grades, Inc. study reported that health professionals misdiagnosed 20-40 percent of emergency room patients. Mistakes like these can result in further injury and wrongful death.

Full post as published by Northern Virginia Personal Injury Lawyer on November 29, 2008 (boomark / email).