Emergency rooms provide people with near immediate access to medical care. People do not have to wait to see their physician or get a referral for care in the hospital. When they have major symptoms or require medical support outside of normal business hours, patients can go to the emergency room to seek evaluation and treatment.
Unfortunately, errors in an emergency room setting are relatively common. Every year, thousands of people experiencing truly urgent medical situations get turned away at the emergency room or receive the wrong type of care, often due to diagnostic mistakes.
Why are errors so common in emergency room settings?
Triage practices can lead to mistakes
Triage is the process of evaluating a situation rapidly to best allocate limited resources. In an emergency room flooded by patients, triage involves analyzing who has the most pressing needs and who is most likely to actually benefit from medical intervention.
Many errors in an emergency room setting relate to mistakes when applying triage protocol to incoming patients. The way that illnesses present differently in the sexes and language barriers, as well as personal bias, can potentially contribute to the likelihood of triage-related emergency room errors.
Communication can be a major factor
There are many points in the emergency room care process where mistakes could occur. Many of those issues relate to the communication between patients and employees or among emergency room workers.
For example, there could be a language barrier that prevents a patient from adequately communicating with emergency room workers. Instead of securing translation services, workers may try to rush ahead based on what they can understand. They may then make significant mistakes regarding the diagnosis and care of a patient.
Other times, communication issues can arise between staff members. A patient might convey particularly concerning symptoms to only one worker. That medical employee may fail to put a note into the patient’s chart or to relay the information to other professionals working with that patient. The result may be gaps in information that slow down the diagnostic process.
High-stress environments compromise decision-making
Sometimes, the mistakes that occur in emergency rooms are due to the intense demand placed on workers. They divide their attention, resulting in them missing information or forgetting details quickly. They may ignore patients who seem stable or calm with disastrous results.
They may also let their prior experiences with patients who have certain characteristics influence how they treat individuals. They may downplay the severity of self-reported symptoms or assume that a patient has come seeking drugs when they truly need emergency medical intervention.
When those who need emergency intervention don’t receive the right support, their prognosis may worsen because of the negligence or mistakes of healthcare professionals. Pursuing a medical malpractice lawsuit may help compensate those harmed by a lack of care or improper medical treatment related to emergency room errors.