As if RNs working in hospital jobs aren’t stressed enough – along comes Ebola. For the record, I am not panicking about an Ebola epidemic (yet). The official death toll from Ebola at the date of this blog is just under 4,000 people – this is in some of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world.
No Ebola deaths have been reported here in the United States. But, as many as 48,000 people die from flu each year. And more shockingly, 400,000 die each year from medical malpractice in hospitals. Living in one of the richest countries in the world, these 400,000 deaths from medical malpractice is what I classify as an epidemic of ridiculous proportion.
When it comes to Ebola, nursing, medical and hospital malpractice is really what we should be concerning ourselves with. The first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola here in the States suffered a glaring incident of medical malpractice that was initially blamed on a flaw in the EHR which kept the doctors from reading the complete medical record – something Certified Legal Nurse Consultants certainly know to do.
It’s undisputed that the ED nurse obtained the patient’s travel history which was a strong indication of Ebola and entered it into the medical record where it should have been available to the healthcare providers. All Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that a patient’s history is 95% of the diagnosis, especially in a case like this. So who dropped the ball? My guess is the ED physicians didn’t read the documented history. It’s also arguable that the nurse should have shouted the patient’s history to the ED physicians. Nurses know that doctors are notorious for not reading a patient’s medical record.
The hospital has since stopped blaming the EHR, but has stopped short of blaming its medical team, according to the New York Times. It will be interesting to see if the people who were exposed after the patient was released from the hospital contract Ebola and then proceed to pursue a claim against the facility for negligently releasing the patient.
According to a Reuters news report, U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients. This is not surprising since the hospitals themselves seem unprepared. This unpreparedness of both the nurses and hospitals will increase the direct corporate liability of hospitals in Ebola medical malpractice cases.
Healthcare in the U.S. is far superior to healthcare in the African countries suffering the outbreak and we currently don’t have anything close to an Ebola epidemic. There should be no need to panic when an Ebola patient presents. UNLESS, of course, health care providers and hospitals continue the tradition of malpracticing on patients as they are prone to do.
I’m Just Sayin’
P.S. Comment and share your opinions about Ebola.
