Does Medical Malpractice Increase on Weekends?
As Orlando medical malpractice lawyers, we are not surprised by the recent study released in the New England Journal of Medicine finding a higher death rate for people who go to the hospital for heart attacks on the weekends. Due to inadequate staffing fewer invasive cardiac procedures are performed on patients having a heart attack on the weekend. The authors suggest that the lack of proper testing caused by the difference in staffing levels appears to be responsible for the increased death rate.
The study tracked over 200,000 patients and found about a 1% difference in death rates of those cardiac patients entering the hospital on the weekend as opposed to a weekday. Certainly, in many medical malpractice cases we have handled over the past twenty years we have found staffing deficiencies as contributing factors. Who can deny that when hospital staffing levels drop, patient care will suffer?
Outcomes for patients with heart attacks improve by early angiography and efforts to open the arteries causing the heart attack. No doctor I have ever deposed has denied that cardiac patients should be treated quickly and aggressively. Unfortunately, the study found that on weekends, hospital staffers perform fewer invasive cardiac procedures because the necessary personnel are not working.
Current guidelines for patients suffering severe heart attacks call for getting them into the cardiac catheterization lab within 90 minutes so their blocked arteries can be reopened. But for those with less severe cases, the procedure may be put off for 48 to 72 hours. Usually, in our cardiac cases involving emergency care, the defense focuses on whether the patient’s presentation warranted faster intervention than what our client received. It seems this current study can be interpreted to suggest that all heart attack patients should receive faster treatment.
While this study may not prevent needless injury and wrongful death to innocent heart attack patients, it certainly sounds an important warning to consumers. The fact that this warning comes from a prestigious medical journal will hopefully have a greater impact on those seeking medical care on the weekend and their family members
