Despite Improvements In Tracking Hospital Errors They Still Happen Indicates Arkansas Injury Lawyer Michael Smith

Little Rock, AR (Law Firm Newswire) April 9, 2014 – “It’s no secret that hospital errors have a major impact on patient heath,” remarks Arkansas medical negligence lawyer, Michael Smith. “And, while many hospitals across America today have made efforts to limit the number of errors while treating patients, the number of serious injuries or deaths continues to climb.” Recent figures indicate that more than 440,000 patients die each year.

Some medical facilities do a good job of recording their errors and instituting new safety procedures to reduce mistakes. Others seem to miss the boat and continue to make mistakes; both repeated old and new ones. This is the type of information that patients needing hospital care want to know, but frequently have no idea where to find these kinds of statistics.

Whether patients are able to find such information is a moot point, as many hospitals and those that they employ, do not record various errors, because they are viewed as not being a threat to a patient’s well being. “On the contrary,” says Smith adamantly, “all medical errors need to be recorded, as no one can know with certainty what may happen to the patient later.”

Despite the move to more technologically advanced health services for Americans today, mistakes are more rampant than ever, directly due to the complexity of the newer methods of treating individuals with modern technology. Reporting any and all errors may lead to fewer serious incidents and/or deaths, but technological mistakes and the human guilt reflex is a hard combination to beat. Many errors are subjectively assigned a not-so-serious category and go unreported.

Although strict reporting of hospital errors would likely enhance patient safety, the main difficulty in implementing such a system nationwide is the methodology used by each hospital to report what they classify as mistakes. No two hospitals have the same reporting system. “And therein lies the issue,” Smith adds. “Without consistency across the board, nothing may be adequately compared or improved upon.”

For those who have suffered as a result of a mistake made while in the hospital, speak directly to a competent medical malpractice lawyer to find out what legal rights are pertinent in such matters. Cases such as this are complex and need legal counsel to move forward effectively.

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