Medical Procedure Mistakes
Medical Procedure Errors
Anesthesia Errors
Infections (Staph Infections and MRSA, VRE, C. diff)
Bed Sores and Wounds
Medication Errors
Dental Mistakes
Medical procedures that lead to harm or injury to you are actionable. Physical injuries may result from hospital negligence, anesthesia mistakes, causing or failing to prevent or to correct an infection, prescription mistakes, dental procedure mistakes, misuse of equipment causing injury to organs during a procedure, un-sterile equipment passing diseases to patients, failure to recognize an injury during a procedure that could have been treated, or losing or mislabeling a biopsy.
Anesthesia
An anesthesia error that occurs in surgery or during another medical procedure can lead to permanent injury or cause the death of the patient. Few people are aware that negligence by anesthesiologists, anesthetists and other providers is one of the most common causes of lawsuits against medical professionals.Possible Causes of Anesthesia Errors
The following are some of the most common anesthesia mistakes resulting from medical negligence or wrongful action:
• Anesthesia dosage error: This can happen when an anesthetic product is improperly labeled, resulting in the administration of the incorrect dose. A dosage error can also happen if an anesthesiologist gives the patient too much or too little anesthesia.
• Delayed anesthesia delivery: This anesthesia error can be due to vaporizer leakage, IV errors, syringe-swapping troubles, and other complications at the outset of surgery.
• Failure to intubate or injury caused during intubation: During surgery, an Anesthesiologist will often intubate a patient to help them breath safely during the procedure. If this medical provider makes an error during intubation, serious injury can result.
• Failure to properly monitor a patient: An anesthesiologist is responsible for regulating a patient's level of consciousness during the procedure, ensuring that a patient is not experiencing any complications or distress. Failure to fulfill these essential duties constitutes medical malpractice.
• Failure to recognize complications.
• Leaving the head of the bed, allowing the patient to go unattended: The operating room can be a hectic busy environment, with many opportunities for distraction. However, as previously stated, an anesthesiologist and other medical providers have the primary duty of monitoring the patient and preventing harm.
• Turning off the alarm on the pulse oximeter: This device is used during many medical procedures to monitor the level of oxygen in a patient's blood. This is a key vital sign monitored during surgery. These medical devices have an alarm function intended to alert medical providers when levels give cause for concern. If a medical professional turns this function off, they may miss important clues about patient distress and injury.
• Improper or negligent administration of oxygen during surgery.
• Allowing oxygen to come too close to hot surgical equipment.
• Drug or alcohol use by an attending medical provider.
• Communication errors before, during or after the procedure, which can occur between and among medical staff and patients: Among many possible scenarios, this may include such communication errors as failure to give patients proper instructions about eating and drinking before surgery.
• Dangerously prolonged sedation.
• Defective equipment.
Injuries Caused by Anesthesia Errors
The type of damage caused by anesthesia error will undoubtedly depend on the type of mistake that was made and the subsequent medical response. The most common injuries caused by anesthesia errors include:
• Tracheal damage or injury to surrounding areas caused by intubation errors
• Asphyxia or lack of adequate oxygen supply
• Cardiovascular injury, which may include heart attack or stroke
• Birth defect
• Loss of bodily function
• Brain damage including traumatic brain injury or TBI
• Spinal cord injury, which often leads to paralysis or loss of feeling and function in the body
• Nerve damage
• Coma
• Death
Hospital Infections
Hospital infections are commonly drug resistant and lethal. The bacteria in these infections replicate and mutate so aggressively that even the most potent antibiotics can not kill them. Most of these infections can be prevented through the implementation of stricter sanitary and bacterial testing procedures. Infections can be frustrating and unfortunate by-products of medical procedures and hospital stays. They result in sufferering over and above what the original illness was. Moreover, in many cases they are preventable if required hospital procedures are implemented and followed. If you or a loved one has suffered from a hospital-borne bacterial infection you may have valuable legal rights.
Staph Infections
Staphylococcus is a group of bacteria that can cause a multitude of diseases as a result of infection of various tissues of the body. Staphylococcus is more familiarly known as Staph (pronounced "staff"). Staph-related illness can range from mild and requiring no treatment to severe and potentially fatal.
Over 30 different types of Staphylococci can infect humans, but most infections are caused by Staphylococcus aureus. Staphylococci can be found normally in the nose and on the skin (and less commonly in other locations) of 20%-30% of healthy adults. In the majority of cases, the bacteria do not cause disease. However, damage to the skin or other injury may allow the bacteria to overcome the natural protective mechanisms of the body, leading to infection.
Anyone can develop a Staph infection, although certain groups of people are at greater risk, including newborn infants, breastfeeding women, and people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, vascular disease, and lung disease. Injecting drug users, those with skin injuries or disorders, intravenous catheters, surgical incisions, and those with a weakened immune system all have an increased risk of developing Staph infections.
MRSA
The CDC claims that 1.7 million people contract infections in U.S. hospitals each year. In fact, the truth is several times that number. The proof is in the data. One of the fastest growing infections is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a superbug that doesn’t respond to most antibiotics. In 1993, there were fewer than 2,000 MRSA infections in U.S. hospitals. By 2005, the figure had shot up to 368,000 according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). By June, 2007, 2.4 percent of all patients had MRSA infections, according to the largest study of its kind, which was published in the American Journal of Infection Control. That would mean 880,000 victims a year.
VRE
Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are a type of bacteria called enterococci that have developed resistance to many antibiotics, especially vancomycin. Enterococci bacteria live in our intestines and on our skin, usually without causing problems.
Enterococci bacteria become a problem when they cause infection. These infections can occur anywhere in the body. Some common sites include the intestines, the urinary tract, and wounds. For some people, especially those who are weak or ill, these infections can become serious.
Vancomycin-resistant enterococci infections are treated with antibiotics-the types of medicines that are normally used to kill bacteria. VRE infections are more difficult to treat than other infections with enterococci because fewer antibiotics are effective against the bacteria.
VRE, like many bacteria, can be spread from one person to another through casual contact or through contaminated objects. Most often, VRE is spread from the hands of a health professional to a patient in a hospital or other health care setting. VRE is not usually spread through the air like the common cold or flu virus unless you have VRE pneumonia and are coughing, which is rare.
If you are healthy, your chances of getting VRE are very low. Even if you have been exposed to VRE, or have VRE in your body, you are not likely to get an infection. VRE infections generally only occur among people who have weakened immune systems, such as people with long-term illnesses or people who have had major surgery or other medical procedures and have been treated with multiple antibiotics.
C. diff
Clostridium difficile, often called C. difficile or "C. diff," is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. Illness from C. difficile most commonly affects older adults in hospitals or in long term care facilities and typically occurs after use of antibiotic medications.
In recent years, C. difficile infections have become more frequent, more severe and more difficult to treat. Each year, tens of thousands of people in the United States get sick from C. difficile, including some otherwise healthy people who aren't hospitalized or taking antibiotics.
Bed sores
Bed sores owe their name to the observation that patients who were bedridden and not properly repositioned, would often develop ulcerations or sores on their skin, typically over bony prominences. These bed sores, which result from prolonged pressure, are also called "decubitus ulcers", "pressure sores" and "pressure ulcers".
Bed sores are a localized area of tissue injury that develops when soft tissue is compressed between a bony prominence and an external surface for a prolonged period of time. The external surface may be a mattress, a chair, a wheelchair, or even other parts of the body. The soft tissues of the body, such as skin and muscle, depend upon blood vessels to carry nutrients to the tissue and remove the waste products. Bed sores result when prolonged pressue prevents sufficient blood flow to supply the tissue with nutrients. The resulting bed sore represents the death of the involved soft tissues.
It is important to note that bed sores do not always result from being in bed as the name would imply. Some of the most severe bed sores can also result from sitting for a prolonged period of time. Thus, the location of the bed sores can depend upon the position of the patient. For individuals who are not bed-bound, the sores are most likely to form on or around the heels, the hip-bone, and the lower back or tailbone. Pressure ulcers may also develop in a variety of other areas, including the spine, ankles, knees, shoulders, and head, depending upon the position of the patient.
Bed sores should not occur if a patient is properly supervised including regular body rotations, and proper nutrition and skin maintenance measures are observed.
Medication Error
The American Hospital Association lists the following as some common types of medication errors:
• incomplete patient information (not knowing about patients' allergies, other medicines they are taking, previous diagnoses, and lab results, for example);
• unavailable drug information (such as lack of up-to-date warnings);
• miscommunication of drug orders, which can involve poor handwriting, confusion between drugs with similar names, misuse of zeroes and decimal points, confusion of metric and other dosing units, and inappropriate abbreviations; lack of appropriate labeling as a drug is prepared and repackaged into smaller units;
• environmental factors, such as lighting, heat, noise, and interruptions, that can distract health professionals from their medical tasks.
Other mistakes include improper drug dosage prescribed or administered, pharmacists misfilling prescriptions, pharmacies give customers someone else's prescription, failure of a doctor to detect a common allergic reaction, and dilution errors.
Dental Malpractice
• Failure to treat or diagnose an oral disease
• Failure to diagnose dangerous oral conditions
• Negligent dental work
• Botched dental procedures
• Botched oral surgery
• Faulty root canal
• Defective dental devices
• Unnecessary extractions
• Extraction-related injuries
• Extracting too many teeth or the wrong teeth
• Complications related to bridges and crowns
• Failure to treat gum disease
• Anesthesia-related errors
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