The nursing staff of any healthcare facility is responsible for monitoring patients, administering medication, and acting as a go-between for doctors and patients. While nurses are highly trained medical professionals, they are not immune to mistakes, and these errors can lead to serious injuries and wrongful death. An experienced Schenectady Nursing Error Lawyer could help you file a malpractice claim against the nurse who harmed you or your loved one.
Nurses are charged with a high level of accountability for patient care and must adhere to the professional standards demanded by their licensing board when they perform their duties. However, nursing errors are not infrequent occurrences in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. In fact, a study published in 2015 found that the most common hospital errors were related to nursing actions.
Some common examples of nursing errors include:
Medication Errors
Nurses must distribute countless doses of medication to their patients each day, and they are often responsible for monitoring even the smallest changes in a patient’s condition. However, a simple mistake such as giving a patient the wrong medication or giving a patient a medication they are allergic to can cause significant injury or death.
Other common forms of nursing error include:
Failure to Update Medical Records
Nursing mistakes can have long-term effects on a patient’s health and well-being, especially when the nurse fails to properly document a patient’s treatment. Nursing errors can also occur when the nurse is too busy or distracted to keep up with their duties, leading to them making a careless mistake that negatively impacts their patients.
Negligence and Harm
In order for a nurse to be liable for negligence, they must have fallen below the standard of care. This standard of care is defined as how any other nurse would have acted under the same or similar circumstances.
An experienced Syracuse Nursing Malpractice Lawyer could review your case and determine whether the nurse’s action was negligent, and if it led to harm or injury. In some cases, the negligence may not be apparent, but other factors such as a poor working environment or a lack of training could be at play.
It is important to note that, unlike medical malpractice claims filed against physicians, a nursing malpractice case must be filed within two years and six months of the date of the error. This deadline cannot be extended, so it is important to speak with an experienced Schenectady Nursing Error Attorney as soon as possible after you or your loved one has been harmed by a medical error committed by a nurse.
Depending on the situation, you may be able to pursue a claim against not only the individual nurse, but also against their employer or the hospital in which they work. This is due to a legal doctrine called vicarious liability, which holds that employers like hospitals and clinics are liable for any wrongdoing committed by their employees while performing their duties. This gives the injured party access to bigger insurance policies and deeper pockets when pursuing compensation.
