When Medical Equipment Failure Causes Further Injury

A stay in the hospital exposes you to a vast array of medical technology that you are probably not even aware of.

Machinery is monitoring all of your vital signs and even helping dispense medications and fluids. A problem with any of these devices could potentially lead to harming you permanently or in extreme cases cause death. Any number of things could cause these machines to be useless; a product defect, poor maintenance, or even a mistake by medical personnel. If you or someone you love was injured by a flaw in the medical equipment that was supposed to be helping, talk over your case with a Missouri medical malpractice attorney.

Investigating for Medical Negligence

Through your medical records they can investigate your case and determine if your injury was in fact due to medical negligence.
If a patient is not monitored properly, even the simplest of medical devices or tools can cause a permanent injury. A faulty hospital bed, for example, was to blame for the suffocation of a young girl who had gotten trapped inside of it. Not only was this a products liability case against the manufacturer of the hospital bed, but also a medical malpractice case against the St. Louis hospital for failing to properly monitor the child or note the dangerous condition of the bed. In the end, this case was settled for $1.4 million.

The Monitoring Practices of the Medical Staff

In a case like the above mentioned, or any involving an equipment failure, the monitoring practices of the medical staff will be scrutinized. Even though machinery is monitoring the progress of a patient, and those results can be read from the nurse’s station, it is still a standard of care that visual checks on patients are done with regularity. Machinery alone should not be relied on to assess a patient’s condition.

Regular Maintenance Checks of Equipment

It is also the responsibility of a hospital to regularly perform maintenance checks on important medical equipment. Malfunction or failure is more likely to occur when the effectiveness of a device has not been affirmed. This could cause life threatening situations, especially if the device in question is supposed to be monitoring something as important as your heart. Since physicians usually rely on monitoring equipment to diagnose and treat medical conditions, using one that is giving false information could lead to misdiagnosis or a treatment plan that is harmful to the patient. An experienced Missouri medical malpractice attorney recognizes the importance of the up-keep of these machines and will ask for the maintenance reports of any machinery that was used in your case.

A False Sense of Security

While innovations in medical technology saves millions of lives each year, it is useless when used improperly or not monitored as it should be. A monitor does not replace the need for a real live nurse or physician to also personally check on the patient frequently. These medical devices also need to be tested themselves from time to time or their use could give a false sense of security to the staff and patient. If you need help to determine if faulty medical equipment caused you further harm during a recent hospital stay, call Zevan and Davidson Law Firm at (314) 588-7200 . There is a possibility that you are eligible to receive compensation for those injuries.

Photo credit: brykmantra