Hospital Malpractice Lawyer

An experienced medical malpractice attorney can help you seek justice for your injuries caused by negligence at the hospital.

The personal injury attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC will ensure your claim has the highest chance of approval to get the compensation you need.

Discuss your compensation claim with a Chicago, IL medical malpractice lawyer who will protect your rights and obtain the compensation you may be entitled to receive. Contact our law offices by calling us at (888) 424-5757 to schedule a free consultation.

Patients rely on the medical team's expertise to provide the best care in a medical center or hospital. Typically, a patient's health care provider orchestrates their medical care. Doctors and support staff carry out the physicians' orders and treatment from admission into the hospital and throughout the stay.

Unfortunately, hospital injuries can be severe for patients undergoing surgery, recuperating during the surgical recovery process, or rehabilitation after a procedure. Some injuries can be severe such as brain damage that leads to cerebral palsy, and others fatal, resulting in wrongful death malpractice claims.

Hiring Hospital Malpractice Lawyers

The medical malpractice attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers represent clients injured by their healthcare provider in a doctor's office, hospital, or medical center.

Our Chicago personal injury team currently represents clients throughout the United States, Illinois, Cook County, DuPage County, Kane County, Lake County, Will County, Arlington Heights, Aurora, Chicago, Elgin, Joliet, Naperville, and Waukegan. Reach out and contact us for a free consultation!

Our Chicago law offices currently follow CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Covid-19 guidelines on social distancing to maintain everyone's well-being.

When It's Time to Talk to a Hospital Injury Lawyer

According to an established standard of care, all patients deserve medical care in a clean and well-run hospital. All medical providers working in the hospital and emergency room have a duty of care to provide each patient with needed treatment, rehabilitation, or surgical procedure to treat their medical condition.

However, some medical facilities have a broken system where medical errors, anesthesia errors, and surgical mistakes cause catastrophic problems resulting in harm to the patient.

Examples of systematic errors in medical malpractice cases include:

• A medical professional administering the wrong medication
• Performing the wrong medical procedure on a patient
• Performing the procedure on the wrong patient
• Allowing bedsores (pressure sores) to develop during the patient's stay
• Failing to follow doctor orders
• Misdiagnosing or failure to diagnose a life-threatening condition
• Labor and delivery problems that result in birth injury, brain damage, or cerebral palsy
• Using outdated or broken equipment (wheelchairs, beds, tables, etc.)
• Medical experts failing to protect patients from physical harm from intruders or staff
• Giving patients the wrong food

Failing to maintain complete and comprehensive medical records to identify allergies, medication reactions quickly, and advanced directives have injured and killed thousands of medical malpractice victims.

Injured victims of medical malpractice can sue a facility for medical negligence. This legal theory differs from filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor for medical professionals' errors.

You Can Sue the Hospital: How a Medical Negligence Attorney Can Help

In addition to errors resulting from inadequate hospital policy, the medical negligence of individual staff members, nurses, and orderlies may cause or contribute to a patient's injuries.

Examples of individual staff negligence that commonly translate into serious injuries or death of the patient include:

• Dropping patients
• Failing to assist with transfers in and out of bed
• Improperly drawing blood
• Pushing patients in wheelchairs into walls and elevator doors

Medical malpractice lawsuits often involve high-lasting pain and suffering, but the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a law that limited how much victims can recover. The state legislature attempted to limit the amount victims filing medical malpractice claims could recover in damages.

However, the  Illinois Supreme Court found these caps were unconstitutional.

Now you're able to seek out whatever damages fit your needs in this type of case – from economic losses like lost income or retirement funds all way up to emotional distress, which includes feelings such as fear for one's safety at work due to an association with someone who caused them harm through negligence by a medical professional in various practice areas, including:

• Surgical malpractice
• Dental malpractice
• Hospital malpractice
• Chiropractic malpractice
• Birth injury malpractice, including cerebral palsy and brain damage

Patient Falls in Hospitals and Illinois Medical Centers

The medical team preventing patient falls continues to be the most extensive safety issue in hospitals in the United States. A study done by the Flex Monitoring Team showed that falls account for 84% of all inpatient incidents, and 30% of these hospital falls are thought to result in serious injuries.

The falls often happen due to negligence on the part of the medical facility, including:

• Inadequate assistance devices for the patient
• Failure to diagnose a medical condition
• Not preparing for medication side effects
• An inattentive or understaffed medical team

Hospital fall victims tend to stay in the facility longer and generate higher medical bills. The total medical bills are 60% higher for those who have a fall in the hospital, and it is expected that these costs will reach more than $54 billion nationwide!

Numerous Medical Malpractice Cases

$4,250,000 Settlement; Medical Malpractice; Cook County, Chicago, Illinois

Most hospitals are busy, where minutes are precious for a patient requiring emergent treatment. Because of that, the staff must always be alert to avoid a medical mistake. In this hospital medical malpractice case, a little boy's parents took him to see the doctor when he was two years old at Palos Park, Illinois hospital.

His doctor and other medical professionals diagnose Croup and discharged him with test results. Yet, a few days, his parents brought their loved one back because he was not getting better. His doctors readmitted him to the hospital for additional care and observation.

The hospital staff watched the boy slip out of consciousness, stop breathing, and experience cardiac arrest. The nurses' efforts to help were unsuccessful. The doctor did not see the boy for nearly a half-hour. He died the next day.

His parents sued the Chicago hospital and doctor for medical malpractice, citing a minimal standard of care and failing to accurately diagnose their child's condition. The family alleged that the doctors, nurses, and medical facility oversight resulted from medical negligence and that the inadequate service caused the child's death.

Their Chicago medical negligence lawyer reviewed the child's medical records and helped the family seek compensation for their damages, including their pain, his pain, and all the loss that accompanied their loved one's death.

The family's trial lawyers negotiated a $4.25 million resolution to close the medical malpractice claim based on wrongful death in a private settlement. The hospital paid the bulk of the settlement compensation, and the doctor's malpractice insurance policies paid about $750,000.

$7,000,000 Verdict; Hospital Medical Malpractice; Cook County, Illinois

While the medical malpractice claim facts were clear, determining who was at fault was challenging and required a jury verdict to decide. The older adult with post-traumatic stress disorder from prior military service was receiving treatment for unrelated injuries at a Chicago hospital.

His doctors discharged him from the hospital and sent him back to the nursing center via an ambulance where he was living. While in the ambulance, the vehicle came to a stop allowing him to break free from his restraints and attempt to escape.

However, he fell and sustained massive brain damage that claimed his life a few hours later when leaving the vehicle. The man's estate claims that the hospital did not inform the ambulance staff of his mental state.

The medical negligence lawsuit documents that the man was suicidal and had suffered other mental conditions that made him a danger to himself and others.

The plaintiffs' trial lawyers claim that had the paramedics known of their loved one's mental status, they could have provided treatment differently to prevent his death. In response, the hospital claimed that they did inform the ambulance staff about the man's mental status but that the paramedics took no action.

The multi-million dollar Chicago, Illinois medical malpractice claim became a "he said, she said" argument that the hospital and doctors ultimately lost. The jury awarded the plaintiffs a $7 million verdict for their grief, suffering, and loss of society that his death caused.

$965,000 Settlement; Hospital Medical Malpractice Claim; Cook County, Illinois

A male victim in his early 60s was involved in a combined medical malpractice lawsuit with a hospital and nursing home.

In the summer of 2014, the patient entered a nursing facility without bedsores (pressure wounds, decubitus ulcers) on his body.

However, bedsores began to develop while living in the nursing center and degraded significantly where he needed medical treatment in the hospital emergency room. His bedsores had developed on his spinal region of the spine.

His bedsores worsened while he was receiving treatment from a medical professional team in the hospital. The victim believes that the hospital medical professionals never heeded warnings nor followed the admittance documents prepared by the convalescent home before his bedsoresdegraded to a life-threatening Stage IV.

The victim underwent debridement (cutting away dead tissue) and reconstructive surgery at the hospital. Due to his injuries, he filed a civil lawsuit against the hospital, doctors, and the nursing facility, claiming that their combined medical malpractice caused him pain, disfigurement, disability, and extensive medical bills.

The defendants (hospital, medical professional, and nursing facility) agreed to a negotiated settlement of $870,000 compensation for the injured victim. The facility paid $95,000 in compensation, and the nursing facility paid the balance of the medical malpractice case.

$6,450,000 Settlement; Hospital Medical Malpractice Case; Cook County, Illinois

A fifty-five-year-old woman was admitted for surgery at a Chicago hospital to undergo an implant pacemaker procedure. After the surgery, she began bleeding and suffering other severe complications.

The nursing staff decided to monitor her for nearly a month at the facility. After her discharge from the facility, she returned with breathing difficulty and other troubling symptoms a few days later.

Soon afterward, she went into shock, had a heart attack, and died. The attorney for her estate discovered the original pacemaker procedure caused all her issues (medical malpractice).

Her surviving spouse and four children filed a medical malpractice claim, citing wrongful death against the hospital and medical professionals. The plaintiffs' trial lawyers pointed out that all the facility's medical mistakes and the ultimate consequence their mother endured led to her death.

Working with their medical malpractice lawyer, the family chose to resolve their malpractice case by accepting a negotiated settlement of $6.45 million on behalf of their loved one to recoup their damages.

Choose Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Attorneys Who Understand Illinois Law

Even if the circumstances regarding a patient's injuries during hospitalization are unclear, Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers will investigate the matter and provide you with answers surrounding the incident.

Once there is some clarity regarding the facts, our hospital malpractice attorneys can work with the hospital's risk manager on a settlement or proceed with a lawsuit against the medical institution and its employees.

Many Illinois law offices understandably shy away from medical malpractice cases because they can be too challenging and time-consuming.

However, our entire personal injury legal team from our law firm has experience both negotiating settlements and trying medical negligence cases in court. We take the time to build a provable case to hold medical providers responsible for the damages they cause.

Illinois Hospital Medical Negligence Injury FAQs

Our Chicago law offices understand many people are confused about filing and resolving a medical malpractice case. However, contact us today at (888) 424-5757 if you need additional information and legal advice on obtaining compensation to recover your damages.

Below, we have answered common questions.

Can You Sue a Hospital If You Fall?

Falling in a hospital setting or medical center may be considered malpractice if the accident occurred while receiving a doctor's treatment. Typically, slips and falls while a patient is in the hospital tend to be submitted as a premises liability compensation claim.

Talking to an attorney specializing in medical negligence cases can help you determine your claim's legal status for compensation. With legal help, you could recover maximum compensation for your damages.

What to Do If a Patient Falls in a Hospital?

Immediately after the fall, check the patient's vital signs, blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing. Next, look for any injuries like a scrape, cut, broken bones, or bruises to determine if they have any underlying problems that could make their condition worse.

If you were not close by when the person fell, ask them or others to describe what happened. Do not move the injured person from their location until a qualified medical staff member can ensure that moving them will not exacerbate their injuries.

What Is Fall Risk in a Hospital?

Falls in an acute care inpatient hospital tend to result in serious injuries, longer hospital stays, and relocations to long-term nursing facilities for healing. Risk assessment shows people experienced elevated levels of depression and anxiety after a fall in a hospital setting.

These injured people often develop a sense of loss of confidence in self-care.

Why Do Patients Fall in the Hospital?

Nearly hospital patients temporarily residing in an unfamiliar environment may become confused. Most patients receive treatment and medications, undergo surgeries, heal from acute illnesses, or receive specialized care.

Some patients have mobility challenges due to catheters or other various tubes that could increase the potential risk of falling when the tubes get in the way. In the end, a fall devastated the patient who experiences harm and affects families, friends, and the nursing staff providing care.

How Often Do Falls Occur in the Hospital?

According to statistics maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), falls in hospitals are common occurrences, especially among the elderly. Epidemiological studies involving older people reveal that falls happen at a rate of approximately 3 to 5 out of every 1000 bed-days.

This statistic revealed that approximately 1 million individuals in hospitals and medical centers fall every year.

How Can We Reduce Hospital Falls?

The nursing staff, family members, and visitors may take steps to minimize or prevent a fall. First, the medical team needs to identify all patients at high risk for falling and provide those residents with safety companions.

Next, keep the TV remote control and light switches close by and within reach of patients to minimize reaching or getting out of bed or a wheelchair without supervision. Finally, keep the area clear of debris to ensure a walking resident does not trip over objects in their path.

Hospital Injury Lawyers in Chicago, IL Who Aren't Afraid to Fight for Your Rights

The personal injury attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC handle medical malpractice claims and medical malpractice lawsuits through a contingency fee agreement so that you avoid paying any upfront fees.

Please contact our hospital malpractice attorneys at (888) 424-5757 to schedule a free consultation to discuss your medical malpractice lawsuit options in settling with insurance companies or taking your compensation case to trial.

All communication with our Chicago malpractice lawyers remains confidential through an attorney-client relationship.

Our Chicago, Illinois lawyers accept all medical malpractice cases through contingency fee agreements. This arrangement ensures you and your loved one are not charged a legal fee until we obtain compensation in your case.

Families who lost a loved one through a preventable death can file a wrongful death lawsuit. These medical malpractice claims pay for damages, including medical expenses, lost income, loss of consortium, funeral and burial expenses, pain, and suffering.

Our law firm practice areas include motor vehicle crashes, work-related accidents, premises liability, medical malpractice, dental malpractice, nursing home abuse, product liability, and wrongful death.

Attorneys from our law offices currently represent injured clients throughout the state of Illinois. Call us today for a free consultation.

Resources

• National Institutes of Health – Medical Malpractice