IV Errors Causing Serious Injury

Medical Malpractice Mistakes

If you or a loved one has ever been brought to an emergency room for care or to the hospital in general for medical care, one of the first things the doctors and nurses probably did was to prep the patient with an IV.  IV use is common in many types of medical settings, even outside of the hospital.

Experienced medical malpractice attorneys who practice law in the Hudson Valley regions of New York know that many medical malpractice claims are related to IV negligence.  IV errors will almost always occur when the IV is initially placed into the patient, or when medicines and fluids are administered through the IV.

Placing Wrong Drugs through an IV:

It is common to see medical malpractice cases involving the wrong medication being dispensed to a patient.  When this is done through an IV, the patient may be subjected to multiple hours of receiving the wrong medication.  These things happen for many reasons: the IV medication can be given to the wrong patient due to inattention and or poorly maintained records.  The medication can be mislabeled.  The wrong dosage can be administered as well.

Neglecting to Use an IV for Medicine Administration:

On the other hand, a patient can receive medication in a way that is negligent because proper protocol required the use of an IV.  These types of errors can happen when a doctor, nurse, or other medical professional is poorly trained, inexperienced, and or poorly supervised.

Incorrect Solutions:

As readers have probably seen, many different solutions are pumped into patients through an IV.  These solutions might be mislabeled, or a medical professional in a rush may grab the wrong solution and administer it to a patient via an IV.  Again, these IV errors happen due to inattention, inexperience, and from improper supervision and monitoring of the patient.

Malfunctioning and Broken IV Equipment:

Medical equipment is no different from other types of machines in that they can fail to work properly or fail to work at all.  IV machines are not exempt.  They must be inspected, maintained, and monitored to see if they are functioning properly.  Alarms can be used to warn medical professionals that the machine is not working properly.  Obviously, however, sometimes medical professionals fail to monitor the patient to see if the machine is working properly.  When this happens, the patient may not receive the IV medicine needed to maintain and improve the patient’s health.

But what do you think?  I would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com.  You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.