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Wrongful Deaths & Other Preventable Errors In America's Hospitals
By Landon Prescott
In 1999 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released their stunning findings on preventable deaths in hospitals in their report entitled "To err is human". The IOM went so far as to say that preventable deaths in America's hospitals should be considered "a national epidemic". The IOM study found that between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths in hospitals are attributable to medical errors each year.
This makes medical errors the 7th leading cause of death in America, ahead of motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, and AIDS. Another study on wrongful deaths was conducted in 2003 and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This study, conducted by Healthgrades, showed that from the years 2000-2002 wrongful deaths in hospitals were actually more than double what the IOM reported. Healthgrades study showed that as many as 195,000 people suffer from wrongful death in American hospitals each year.
There are a number of reasons why these wrongful deaths happen each year in hospitals. Over worked doctors, medication errors, and inadequate staffing all lead to tragic preventable deaths. This has led to new rules regulating the number of hours that medical residents can work in a week and strict enforcement of these regulations. Medication errors have led to double and triple checking dosages and medication interactions. Inadequate staffing has led to hospitals being forced to close their emergency departments when staffing is inadequate. Despite these efforts to improve medical care, wrongful deaths still happen in hospitals everyday.
If you are the family member of one of these victims, chances are you do not care why this happened; you simply want justice for your loved one. If you are counting on your insurance company to bring justice you are wrong. The reason that the insurance company will not help you is complex. Insurance companies are primarily concerned about making a profit, not seeking justice. Let us assume that you have had a family member suffer a wrongful death in a hospital. Now if your insurance company seeks to penalize this hospital, the insurance company risks losing their contract with the hospital. If this happens, the insurance company has one less place to send the people that they cover. The insurance company also does not want to see this happen because they are getting a discounted rate for services from this hospital. Additionally, the insurance company can use this preventable death case as leverage with the hospital to further reduce the rates that they pay the hospital in future contract negotiations. While all of this may sound cold blooded and heartless, it is a reality.
The hospital and the physician want to quickly and quietly settle with the victims family members in order to avoid bad press. The hospital will do everything that it can to get the family members to sign off on a settlement, as will your own insurance company. This is not the justice that the victim of a wrongful death deserves. This is why choosing a competent and experienced lawyer is in your best interest.
While it may seem morbid to think about suing the hospital for the wrongful death, the family members of the victim need to think about taking care of their family financially and seeing to it that these mistakes do not continue to happen in Americas hospitals. Hospitals do not have incentive to change their practices unless they are hit where it hurts...in their wallet. When this happens, changes in the delivery of healthcare happen.
The financial compensation that an experienced competent lawyer can bring you will help to pay for medical expenses, funeral expenses, and will act as life insurance to assure that you and your family can meet your future expenses. A good lawyer knows how to get the most compensation for you and your family and understands the complex laws surrounding wrongful death cases. Not using a qualified lawyer will result in you not getting the full amount of compensation that would otherwise be awarded to you.
If you are seeking an extremely well qualified and experienced lawyer we can help you. We will help you and your get the compensation and justice that you deserve.
About the Author
Landon Prescott writes on topics related to insurance and health.
The term wrongful death is defined as the loss of life wrongfully caused by another individual. If you have lost a loved one as the result of a personal injury accident, although no amount of money can replace your loss, or properly compensate you, you need a wrongful death attorney to represent you. Michael H. Silvers, A Law Corporation has 24 convenient locations in California. http://www.michaelhsilvers.com/
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