Hospital Nursing Errors Could be the Fault of Worse Capital Region Hospital Scores?

Capital Region Hospital Scores Fall, Possibly Due to Hospital Nursing Errors?

As an Albany medical malpractice lawyer, I know that nursing plays a large role in a patient’s care.  It also plays a large role in New York medical malpractice.  This is because a nurse is in the frontline of healthcare.  Nurses help guide doctors by providing information, documenting, and assisting with procedures or treatment.  When a doctor gives orders, usually nurses help carry them out.  This includes giving medications, checking for bedsores, cleaning wounds, and related care.

But in the recent news about the worse scores in Capital Region hospitals, which are measuring patient safety, it is clear that many of these criteria that were lacking were related to nursing tasks in the hospital—not physicians.  These cold be hospital nursing errors.  This may mean that New York medical malpractice is actually being performed by the nurses rather than the doctors.  This is still a serious error, as the statistics obviously point out.

For instance, are hospitals were worse than the average throughout New York in urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, and dangerous bed sores.  These are tasks that nurses do, such as changing catheters and cleaning the sites, cleaning and checking on wounds, rotating patients, checking for bed sores, and treating bed sores before they become dangerous.  

These are not tasks that a doctor necessarily does.  These are secondary tasks that nurses perform in a hospital to support the doctor and other medical providers.  Thus, it would appear that the worsening scores are due to the medical errors of nurses in hospitals in the Capital Region, particularly in hospitals.

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.