July Puts Preventable Medical Errors & Patient Safety In Focus
Patients trust doctors, nurses, hospitals, and other healthcare providers with some of the most important decisions of their lives. Most receive appropriate care. But when preventable mistakes happen, the consequences can include permanent disability, brain damage, birth injuries, additional surgery, or death. July's Medical Malpractice Awareness Month is a reminder that serious medical malpractice continues to affect patients and families across Ohio and the country.
The National Medical Malpractice Advocacy Association has long promoted July as a time to raise awareness about medical negligence, patient safety, and accountability. The issue extends far beyond isolated cases.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General review found that one in four hospitalized Medicare patients experienced harm during the period studied. Physician reviewers determined that 43% of those harm events could have been prevented with better care.
At The Lancione Law Firm, we only handle birth injury and medical negligence cases. We've seen how a preventable medical error can change a person's health, independence, finances, and family life in a matter of moments.
Not Every Bad Medical Outcome Is Malpractice
A complication, unsuccessful treatment, or unexpected diagnosis doesn't automatically mean medical malpractice occurred. Medicine involves risks, and even appropriate care can't guarantee a good outcome every time.
A malpractice claim generally turns on whether a healthcare provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and whether that failure caused injury or made an existing condition worse.
That distinction often requires a detailed review of the medical records, treatment timeline, testing, hospital policies, and decisions made by the healthcare professionals involved.
Sometimes the problem is one clear mistake. Other cases involve a series of failures, such as a missed symptom followed by delayed testing, poor communication, and treatment that comes too late to prevent serious harm.
Preventable Errors Can Happen Across Many Areas Of Medical Care
Medical negligence can take many forms depending on the patient's condition and the care being provided.
- Diagnostic Errors: A delayed or incorrect diagnosis can allow cancer, infection, stroke, or another serious condition to progress without necessary treatment.
- Surgical Mistakes: Preventable surgical errors can involve damage to organs or nerves, procedures performed incorrectly, poor postoperative monitoring, or other departures from appropriate care.
- Nursing Errors: Nursing negligence can involve failures to monitor a patient's condition, communicate changes, administer medication correctly, or respond to warning signs.
- Medication Mistakes: Wrong medications, incorrect dosages, dangerous interactions, and failures to recognize allergies can cause serious or fatal injuries.
- Emergency Care Delays: Failing to recognize a time-sensitive condition or provide appropriate treatment quickly can dramatically affect a patient's outcome.
- Birth Injuries: Mistakes during pregnancy, labor, delivery, or neonatal care can cause permanent injuries that affect a child and family for life.
Medical malpractice can also involve failures at the hospital level. Poor communication, inadequate policies, delayed responses, or staffing problems can contribute to breakdowns in patient care when hospitals don't have enough people available to safely monitor and treat patients.
Birth Injuries Show The Lifelong Cost Of Preventable Medical Errors
Few examples show the lasting impact of medical negligence more clearly than a preventable birth injury.
During pregnancy and delivery, doctors and nurses may need to recognize fetal distress, monitor the baby's heart rate, respond to maternal complications, order an emergency cesarean section, manage shoulder dystocia, or resuscitate a newborn within a very short window.
A delay of minutes can sometimes have lifelong consequences. Oxygen deprivation can cause hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and other forms of brain damage. Excessive force during delivery can injure nerves in a baby's shoulder and arm. Delayed intervention during fetal distress can contribute to cerebral palsy or other permanent neurological conditions.
Problems aren't always limited to one doctor's decision. Hospital staffing shortages can contribute to gaps in fetal monitoring and delayed responses when nurses and other medical professionals are responsible for more patients than they can safely manage.
Parents may not immediately know that something went wrong. Some injuries become apparent in the delivery room, while others become clearer months later when a child has muscle weakness, abnormal movements, feeding problems, seizures, or developmental delays.
Medical Records Often Reveal The Timeline Behind An Injury
Patients and families often know that something went wrong before they know why it happened.
Medical records can help reconstruct the sequence of events. Depending on the case, important evidence may include:
- Physician and nursing notes.
- Medication administration records.
- Laboratory and diagnostic test results.
- Imaging studies.
- Surgical and anesthesia records.
- Fetal monitoring strips and labor records.
- Hospital policies and protocols.
- Electronic timestamps showing when orders were placed and carried out.
- Discharge instructions and follow-up records.
For families dealing with a birth injury, obtaining complete medical records can help establish what doctors and nurses knew, when warning signs appeared, and how quickly the medical team responded.
Records don't always tell the entire story on their own. Comparing the documentation with testimony, hospital procedures, medical standards, and the timing of treatment may reveal gaps that weren't obvious to the patient or family at the time.
Patients Should Pay Attention When The Explanation Doesn't Add Up
A poor outcome doesn't prove negligence, but patients and families shouldn't be afraid to ask questions when something doesn't make sense.
Concerns may arise when:
- A serious diagnosis was repeatedly missed despite ongoing symptoms.
- Test results weren't reviewed or communicated promptly.
- A patient's condition deteriorated without an appropriate response.
- A procedure resulted in an unexpected injury unrelated to the known risks that were discussed beforehand.
- Different doctors or nurses give conflicting explanations about what happened.
- Medical records appear inconsistent with what the family witnessed.
- A child shows signs of a serious birth injury after a difficult delivery.
Patients have the right to ask for their medical records, seek another medical opinion, and get answers about unexpected complications. Those steps can help protect both their health and their ability to understand what actually happened.
Ohio Medical Malpractice Claims Have Strict Deadlines
Medical malpractice cases can take considerable time to investigate, but Ohio law doesn't give patients unlimited time to act.
Under Ohio Revised Code § 2305.113, a medical claim generally must be filed within one year after the claim accrues. Ohio law also contains a four-year statute of repose that can bar many medical claims after four years from the underlying act or omission, subject to specific exceptions.
A properly delivered written notice before the one-year period expires can provide an additional 180 days in certain circumstances. Other rules may apply when the injured patient is a child, when a foreign object was left inside a patient's body, or when an injury couldn't reasonably have been discovered earlier.
Families shouldn't try to calculate these deadlines on their own. The date of treatment isn't always the only date that matters, and waiting can also make it harder to obtain records, locate witnesses, or reconstruct exactly what happened.
Medical Malpractice Awareness Month Is About Answers And Accountability
Medical Malpractice Awareness Month isn't about assuming every doctor made a mistake whenever treatment goes badly. It's about recognizing that preventable patient harm is real and that people deserve answers when medical care falls below accepted standards.
If you suspect medical negligence caused a serious injury, you don't have to rely solely on the explanation provided by the hospital or medical provider involved. An independent investigation can review the records, reconstruct the timeline, and determine whether the care provided met the appropriate standard.
We only handle birth injury and medical negligence cases at The Lancione Law Firm. Attorney John A. Lancione has spent more than three decades representing patients and families harmed by medical negligence, and we personally investigate the medical decisions and evidence behind each case we accept.
If you or a loved one suffered serious harm and you believe preventable medical negligence may be responsible, contact us for a free consultation. We'll listen to what happened, review the circumstances, and help you understand your potential legal options.
"My son was born under extreme medical complications due to the negligence of a hospital. I contacted Mr. Lancione in regard to my son's medical issues and his future needs due to him being diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Mr. Lancione addressed the situation in a very compassionate, caring, and concerned manner, making sure my son would have everything he needs both now and in the future. Mr. Lancione did not treat us like a paycheck. He treated us like family and has, from the beginning, looked out for the best interest of my son. My son and I will always be grateful for everything he has done. Mr. Lancione is an outstanding attorney, and I would recommend him for any medical malpractice case." - Patricia W., ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐