Study Sheds Light On Preventable Medical Errors In Pediatrics

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Understanding Preventable Medical Errors in Pediatric Care

errors by pediatrician In a sense, medical errors seem like they shouldn’t happen. We’re talking about highly-trained and incredibly intelligent people who are performing tasks that few people in the world are able to perform. Given our ability to learn from mistakes and our penchant for improving our technology and tools to the point that things get better, and not worse, it would seem that medical errors shouldn’t happen that often anymore.

And yet, medical errors are constantly happening. People suffer from them every day, and the negative effects a medical error can have on a person’s health and well-being can be life changing. Over 200,000 people die annually from medical errors that could have been avoided and millions more are left injured. But more than adults, children are particularly vulnerable to preventable medical errors. Studies show nearly 2 to 3 percent of children experience medical malpractice at the hospital, many times due to diagnostic errors. A recent report only reaffirms this notion, while also making it a bit more upsetting given that the study dealt with medical errors in the field of pediatrics.

Children suffer from medical negligence all too often at medical offices, urgent care centers, and hospitals. The usual types of pediatric medical errors in hospitals occur by intravenous catheters causing infections or burns, and surgical errors. Other injuries involve respiratory problems, constipation, and pain. And of all the harms inflicted on children due to medical error, nearly 50 percent could have been avoided, according to a study funded by Boston Children’s Hospital.

Believe it or not, the study found that almost half of the medical errors that happen with pediatric inpatients are preventable. Defining this was a bit tricky, as it’s tough to say that some person should have been able to detect or know that they could have prevented something. Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. And yet, the study looked at 600 pediatric charts and found that 240 of them contained medical errors that “potentially or definitely” could have been prevented.

Most hospital errors involve diagnosis, treatment, or prevention. Children are more prone to medical error because they cannot articulate their symptoms, and among those who can, they may not understand or be able to describe what they are experiencing. Often children do not see the same doctor for all of their care, resulting in an incomplete medical history. In fact, Diagnostic errors account for most insurance malpractice claims against doctors, followed by medication errors. Diagnosing children is especially challenging in babies and children under one year because of how difficult it is to clearly identify symptoms from pre-verbal children. In addition, symptoms can suggest more than one condition. Other diagnostic errors result from medical personnel failing to ask the right questions or taking complete histories, while some doctors fail to order appropriate tests.

Diagnosis errors lead to delays in proper treatment, sometimes life-saving treatment, or the wrong treatment is given, causing a patient to suffer unnecessarily. Medication errors, which comprise 10 percent of total drug orders, can result in serious adverse drug reactions and interactions for children, particularly due to their reduced size and weight when compared with adults. Moreover, increased use of analgesics, antihistamines, anti-psychotics, antibiotics, and muscle relaxants are attributed to the high number of drug error pediatric injuries.

Other errors affecting children in medical settings include patient mix-ups. Patients are misidentified due to incorrect entries in electronic health records, resulting in patients receiving the wrong medications or even having the wrong body parts operated on. Allergies to medications, vaccines or anesthesia are other common errors inside and outside of the operating room that can lead to brain and spinal cord injury or kidney failure. In extreme cases, it can lead to death.

Infants and older children may also die from infections contracted at hospitals and medical facilities. Brain injury results frequently from malpractice in children aged newborn to 1 year, although older older children suffer brain damage from malpractice too. Children up to one year suffer the highest number of fatalities of all pediatric age groups, accounting for nearly 30% of those studied. Most of these severe cases involved injuries to the lungs, heart, blood, respiratory system, and hips.

Wondering if Your Child’s Injuries Could have been Prevented in NJ?

Medical errors are complex events, that is for sure. But that doesn’t make them any less devastating, especially when they involved children or even infants. Doctors and medical professionals need to take special care in these cases, and when they don’t, they should be held accountable for their substandard care. If you are in need of advice and assistance regarding childhood injuries from medical malpractice in New Jersey, contact us today at 973-435-4551 to speak with an attorney who can help. Our team specializes in this highly complex area of practice and we are here to provide the information and knowledgeable legal counsel you and your child need.

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