Wrongful Death - Hospital Negligence

A Texas doctor, John James., M.D. has founded Patient Safety America. The organization educates people about the risks that they face in hospital stays. Dr. James has an unfortunate personal history in that his 19-year-old son died after cardiologists at two Texas hospitals made serious mistakes. Dr. James’ 19-year-old son died because doctors chose not to correctly diagnose and treat the cause of his son’s abnormal heartbeat. Dr. James was the chief toxicologist for NASA in Houston, Texas.

More to the point, an estimated 440,000 individuals die each year because of a medical error in a hospital. That’s an alarming amount of people dying unnecessarily. Some of the deaths are caused by receiving the wrong medications, development of infections because of unsafe practices by nurses and doctors or others because of misdiagnosis or wrong treatments.

As many as 1,000 individuals die each day in America because of medical mistakes in United States hospitals.

Some years ago the figures that were published by the Institute of Medicine were at 98,000 hospital patients dying each year from medical mistakes. The Department of Health and Human Services estimated the number to be 180,000 deaths per year in part because of hospital care. But that number was limited to Medicare patients. Dr. James’ analysis was based on the results of safety studies that were published between 2008 and 2011.

Dr. James’ group has been rating hospitals from high-rated to low-rated. The rating system is based on deaths. According to the report in ConsumerReports.org, it was stated that: “The difference between high-scoring hospitals and low-scoring ones can be a matter of life and death”, says John Santa, M.D., medical director of Consumer Reports Health.

Only seven hospitals in the United States received the top rating in medical mortality and surgical mortality. Two Illinois hospitals were on that list which included Presence St. Joseph Hospital and St. Alexius Medical Center.

Why are some hospitals rated better than others? The answer might lie in a multitude of procedural elements. The better hospitals have good communication programs in place. The staff is well-educated in communicating with each other which drives down drugs and prescription errors and also hospitals that are focused on cleanliness seem to have lower instances of hospital-acquired infections.

Again, the hospitals that are rated better also have programs in place on hand washing and other sanitary procedures that tend to decrease the cause of deadly infections in hospitals. In addition, when errors do occur, the better hospitals with a higher rating tend to have programs of accountability that strive to prevent reoccurrences of hospital deaths where a medical error occurred.

The public should be well-informed and to do that it would be appropriate to watch the Safe Patient Project video which can be seen online.

If you or a loved one has been wrongfully injured or killed due to hospital negligence, contact the experienced lawyers at Chicago’s Kreisman Law Offices.

Robert Kreisman of Kreisman Law Offices has been handling Chicago and Illinois hospital wrongful death cases for more than 40 years. Kreisman Law Offices has prevailed in trials and settlements in Chicago, Illinois and surrounding communities and has successfully resolved cases for those who have been injured or died needlessly in hospitals for these many years.

With our years of experience in trying and settling wrongful death cases, Kreisman Law Offices provides the best possible services to our clients and have achieved unsurpassed results. Our service is unmatched. Please call us 24 hours a day at 312.346.0045 or toll free 800.583.8002 for a free and immediate consultation, or complete a contact form online.

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