There were at least 131 million visits to emergency rooms in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over 18 million of the aforementioned patients ended up being admitted to the hospital that same year. While many patients don’t face any challenges when treated in hospitals, some do. Below, we’ll highlight how hospitals can improve patient safety to ensure that patients don’t experience any health setbacks or die while there.

You went to the hospital for medical care, but you left in a worse condition than you entered. Whether you’re dealing with a new injury or a worsened medical condition, you deserve to be fully and fairly compensated for all that you’ve been through. And to do that, you need to know how to sue a hospital in Arkansas.

Our team of skilled Little Rock medical malpractice attorneys meets with victims of medical negligence for completely free case evaluations. If you have any additional questions about the process of suing a hospital after reading this blog, please contact us so that we can schedule you for a complimentary informational meeting at your earliest convenience.

In this blog, we’ll discuss…

• The types of errors and negligence for which you can sue a hospital.
• How to prove that hospital negligence contributed to your injuries or harm.
• Why you need a credible medical expert to testify on your behalf.

For most people in Arkansas, the days of seeing their regular doctor in a small, physician-run office are long gone. Now, when we seek medical care, we are frequently sitting in the waiting room of a larger, corporate-run healthcare system.

While there are purported benefits to the consolidation of the medical and healthcare system in the United States, the transition to a system largely run with profits in mind has not been without its downsides.

X-rays are one of the most commonly used diagnostic tools in the medical field. They allow doctors to see inside the body without having to perform surgery. However, doctors can misread X-rays much like any other diagnostic test or tool. In fact, despite the tremendous advancements in radiological science, data suggests that radiologists still misread X-rays 3-5% of the time.

The latest data shows that as many as 6,800 prescription medications are available for doctors to prescribe in the United States. This number doesn’t account for all the over-the-counter drugs, supplements, and herbal treatments on the market.

Getting the help you need after suffering an instance of medical malpractice is essential to your future and overall well-being. Knowing what steps to take is not always easy, though, especially if you are still dealing with the aftermath of a doctor’s error.

One of the biggest aspects of a successful medical malpractice claim is establishing a doctor-patient relationship existed between the doctor and the patient that they injured. While it might seem obvious that if the injury occurred, then a doctor-patient relationship existed, that’s not always the case. A medical malpractice lawyer will need to establish that this relationship existed within the parameters of the requirements of the law.

Going to the doctor is already a nerve-wracking experience. You’re feeling sick, in pain, and at your most vulnerable. You seek medical help to make you feel better, and you expect only the best care so that doctors can get to the bottom of what’s ailing you and start treatment. However, when a medical mistake occurs, the opposite could happen. The effects could even be fatal.

Medical mistakes can be grounds for filing a med mal claim. In Arkansas, when you’ve experienced medical malpractice from your doctor or another medical professional, you could use the help of McMath Woods P.A. Our med mal lawyers are prepared to fight for your rights against a negligent doctor.

A growing body of scientific research suggests cognitive biases are impeding physicians’ abilities to treat patients properly. A range of systematic errors in human decision-making is being linked back to the cognitive biases.

According to an article in The New York Times, bias affects how doctors make treatment decisions. This can affect whether patients live or die. While awareness of biases has prompted efforts to reduce them in clinical decision-making, they still have the ability to result in negligence.

On Nov. 7 of this year, The Leapfrog Group published a health care safety report that graded Arkansas’s hospitals on their ability to safely care for patients. While the number of hospitals with “A” grades has doubled since the report published earlier this year in May, that only brought the number to a mere four hospitals in the state.