Hospitals are meant to provide high-quality care for patients who’ve been admitted for treatment, procedures, or care during an illness or after an injury. Unfortunately, hospital administrators and staff members sometimes make careless mistakes or fail to uphold the high standard of care that patients have the right to expect inside their healthcare facility.
Hospital negligence can result in patient injury, worsened medical condition, or even death. Although a legal process cannot erase the injury, a Chicago hospital negligence lawsuit can help a patient recover the compensation they deserve for their losses. Reach out to our medical malpractice lawyer in Chicago today for a free consultation.
Illinois law describes professional negligence as follows under Illinois 105.01:
“The failure to do something that a reasonably careful [specialist/doctor/nurse/therapist/health-care provider/accountant/lawyer/other] …would do, or the doing of something that a reasonably careful specialist would not do under circumstances similar to those shown by the evidence, is ‘professional negligence.”
The most common types of negligence in Chicago hospitals include the following:
Most people think of medical malpractice claims as those filed against a doctor after an error, but when a hospital’s negligence results in a patient’s injury, worsened medical condition, or death, it’s also medical malpractice. An injured victim may hold the hospital liable for the economic damages caused by the harm, as well as for their pain and suffering.
High-quality patient care begins with hospital administration, which is responsible for hiring, training, and monitoring staff, as well as maintaining safety protocols and procedures. Unfortunately, hospital administrators may cut corners or fail to uphold the required standard of care within their facility. The most common types of medical malpractice resulting from hospital negligence include:
When negligent administrative decisions cause substandard care in a Chicago hospital, the results can be devastating to a patient who suffers an injury, worsened medical condition, or wrongful death.
Just as an individual provider may be held liable for an injured patient’s damages, a hospital may be held liable if the doctor was a hospital employee rather than an independent contractor, or if an administrative failure caused the injury. Proving a hospital liable for a patient’s damages requires evidence that shows the following:
A medical malpractice claim for hospital negligence is only viable with evidence that the injured individual was a patient at the hospital at the time of the negligence. Hospital intake documents typically establish that a provider-patient relationship existed when the negligence caused harm.
Both individual doctors and other medical professionals, as well as medical facilities such as hospitals and clinics, owe their patients a legal duty of care. This duty requires them to treat the patient at the level of care that the medical community has established as the appropriate standard.
Evidence must show that the hospital failed to uphold the accepted standard of care, breaching the administration’s legal duty to their patient.
The evidence must show that the hospital’s negligence caused the patient’s injury, harm, worsened medical condition, shortened life expectancy, or death.
Finally, to move forward, the injury victim or the personal representative of a deceased injury victim must show that they suffered damages as a result of the injury. “Damages” in hospital negligence cases refers to both financial losses and the physical harm caused by the negligence.
When the evidence shows that the hospital’s negligence directly caused harm to a patient, a successful claim recovers common economic and non-economic damages, such as the following:
If a hospital’s negligence caused a patient’s fatal injury, the decedent’s personal representative may file a wrongful death claim on behalf of the family.
It takes substantial, compelling evidence and meticulous attention to filing details and deadlines to pursue a successful medical malpractice claim. Hospitals, their large insurance companies, and powerful defense teams do not readily pay out large damages awards in hospital negligence cases. Instead, their objective to protect profits conflicts with your goal to maximize the financial recovery you deserve. An experienced hospital negligence attorney does the following:
Call or contact Smith LaCien LLP for legal representation that safeguards your best interests throughout the complex claim process for hospital negligence in Chicago.
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