If you get hurt or have a sudden ailment you can’t shake, you have plenty of emergency room options around King of Prussia, including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Bryn Mawr Hospital, Phoenixville Hospital, and Paoli Hospital. A trip to any of those facilities begins with a triage assessment.
The results tell staff whether you need immediate treatment or can wait. That distinction can literally mean the difference between life and death.
These ERs are staffed by dedicated doctors, nurses, and administrators who are all dedicated to helping anyone in distress. Although ER staff want the best for their patients, they aren’t infallible. Long shifts and equally long patient lines can create stress that leads to triage mistakes.
When those mistakes happen, it can complicate a patient’s care. What might have started out as a manageable condition may spiral out of control. The question then becomes, “Was this avoidable?”
If an emergency room triage mistake has caused you or a family member harm, it could be an actionable cause for a medical malpractice claim. That is when you need to involve a King of Prussia medical malpractice lawyer. Retaining an attorney is the best way to determine whether your claim has merit and what the next steps should be to seek a remedy.
The Critical Role of Triage in Emergency Medicine
According to the most recent data from the Hospital Health System Association of Pennsylvania, there were 5.4 million visits to ERs across the state in a single year. Each visit began with triage.
From the moment you enter an ER, your condition is assessed either by your own description or by the EMTs who have transported you to the facility. Most emergency rooms use a five-level system, such as the Emergency Severity Index (ESI) or the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS). This is how those levels break down:
- Level 1 (Resuscitation): Immediate, life-saving help needed right now, such as cardiac arrest.
- Level 2 (Emergent): High-risk situation needing care in minutes, such as severe chest pain.
- Level 3 (Urgent): Stable, but serious enough to need prompt treatment within an hour.
- Level 4 (Semi-Urgent): Less serious condition that can wait longer, such as a simple sprain or laceration.
- Level 5 (Non-Urgent): Minor issue with low risk to health, such as a mild rash.
The level you’re assigned will determine how long you might have to wait to see a doctor. That assessment is where the first potential mistake could occur.
Common Types of Emergency Room Triage Errors
An emergency room error boils down to two potential errors: Undertriage or overtriage.
With undertriage, the ER staff underestimates the severity of an illness or injury. They could assign a low urgency level to a high-risk patient who then deteriorates in the waiting room.
On the other hand, overtriage could lead staff to misallocate urgent resources to non-critical patients. That can lead to a strain on the hospital’s capacity and delays in care of other patients who are more in need.
Along with those errors, there could be more mistakes made that lead to further harm, including the following:
- Failure to Assess Vitals: The core vital signs that need to be checked for every ER patient during intake are blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen saturation. If those vitals aren’t checked or are recorded in error, it can lead to complications.
- Dismissal of Atypical Symptoms: Nurses or doctors can mistake a subtle sign of a major emergency for a minor condition. For example, a pulmonary embolism can mimic a panic attack, or they might miss signs of internal bleeding following a car accident trauma.
- Intake Communication Breakdowns: Beyond a patient’s vital signs, other critical details must be documented for a doctor to review. These include the patient’s medical history, current medications, or severe allergies. If these details aren’t part of the patient’s ER record, it can lead to further harm.
When Triage Mistakes Qualify as Medical Malpractice
It is an accepted fact that emergency rooms are inherently chaotic. Doctors and nurses move rapidly from one patient to the next, with each patient presenting with unique circumstances.
Doctors develop a differential diagnosis, a list of possible conditions that could explain a patient’s symptoms. They want to match up as many symptoms as possible to rule out an incorrect diagnosis. Given that, there can be an occasional bad judgment call made, which can be attributed to an honest diagnostic uncertainty rather than negligence.
On the other hand, if the staff ignores a patient’s “red flag” symptoms, administers the wrong medication, or dismisses them too early, it could be seen as negligent. That would make the staff and the hospital liable.
In order to proceed with a medical malpractice claim, you must first obtain a Certificate of Merit as required by law. An independent medical practitioner in the relevant field will write this certificate. In this case, it would be an ER doctor.
This doctor will review the medical records of the ER visit to establish a firm timeline. They will be looking specifically for the “but for” rule. The documentation needs to prove that “but for” the triage delay, the patient would have had a significantly better health outcome.
How a Philadelphia Malpractice Lawyer Can Help
A Certificate of Merit is not something you can order online. It requires a specific search for a qualified professional. It helps to have an experienced Philadelphia malpractice lawyer on your side.
The legal team at Shrager, Sachs, & Blanco is very familiar with the medical malpractice claim process. We have strong relationships with many medical professionals that we call on to provide expert testimony. We also appreciate how difficult it can be to have put your trust in a hospital only for your outcome to be worse than when you went into that facility.
If we agree that your claim has merit, we will work tirelessly to help secure the maximum compensation allowed. ER visits are already expensive. You shouldn’t be expected to pay for a staff member’s negligence.
If you feel as though you’ve been the victim of a triage error, call to set up a free consultation.
We can figure out what should happen next together.
