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Cleveland OH 44122
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Cleveland Attorneys Hold Hospitals Financially Responsible When Doctor/Nurse Miscommunication Leads to Injury

Medical Software Miscommunication in hospitals can lead to serious injury or death

One frequent cause of medical negligence is miscommunication. Some kind of miscommunication probably occurs every single day in every single hospital in America. One particularly troublesome time for miscommunication is the patient “hand-off.” A hand-off is when responsibility for a patient is transferred from one nurse to another nurse or from one doctor to another doctor. Too often, the caregiver who is “signing out” is eager to leave the hospital and does not provide adequate and accurate information to the newly-arriving doctor or nurse. This often endangers patient safety and causes significant injury or death. In fact, it has been estimated that nearly 80% of all serious medical errors involve a critical miscommunication at the time of a patient hand-off. The medical malpractice lawyers at The Eisen Law Firm in Cleveland find it unacceptable that so many patients are harmed by unnecessary miscommunication each year.

Where do communication breakdowns occur and lead to malpractice injuries?

Unfortunately, the substance of “sign out” conversations (also called “report,” especially by nurses) is almost never documented or recorded in the patient’s medical records. It therefore is often necessary to file suit and take the testimony of the involved care givers in order to get to the bottom of a miscommunication. The same is true of miscommunications between doctors and nurses that result in patient harm. At the Eisen Law Firm, we have handled many cases where nurses insist under oath that they kept doctors fully informed of a patient’s deteriorating condition, while the doctors swear they were kept in the dark. The Eisen Law Firm recently settled a misscommunication case for $1,750,000. In this particular case, the patient bleed to death in their hospital bed after a gallstone removal. Such cases must be managed very carefully to ensure that the proper people are held accountable.

Schedule a free initial consultation with a reputable medical malpractice attorney if you think a miscommunication between medical professionals led to your injury

Our experienced medical malpractice attorneys have held physicians and nurses accountable for their mistakes for nearly forty years. Call us today at 216-687-0900 or to schedule a free consultation with one of our attorneys at The Eisen Law Firm. We help clients throughout Northeast Ohio, including Cleveland, Lorain, Columbus, Toledo, and Akron find justice.