Connecticut Medical Malpractice: Patient Hand-Offs Wrought With Mistakes

Patient hand-offs, whether a patient is airlifted to another healthcare facility or transferred from the emergency room to another part of the hospital, are chock full of areas where there can be gaps in care that could be considered Connecticut medical malpractice. This is so much of an issue the Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Alert in the Fall of 2017.

Take the emergency room, for example. Visiting the emergency room is stressful. Especially since you or your loved one is not feeling well and you are worried about their symptoms. A survey of hospital doctors shows that due to a lack of communication when a patient is handed from the emergency department to an inpatient unit at the hospital, the patient is at a high risk for an adverse event.

Of the doctors that responded to the survey, 34% of attending physicians and 19% of emergency room doctors admitted that a patient was harmed in the previous three months when the patient was handed off from the ER.

If you or your loved one was injured after being transferred from the emergency department to another unit in the hospital, call our office immediately. Our medical malpractice team and attorneys will begin a medical and legal investigation into your case.