Medical malpractice by doctors, nurses and staff at hospitals and medical centers occurs every day across the nation for a variety of reasons. Kaiser Permanente, California's largest non-profit healthcare provider is no exception. However, our legal expert says that miscommunication between medical staff is a common issue at Kaiser and often leads to malpractice claims.
California Attorney J. Niley Dorit
J. Niley Dorit, a California medical malpractice attorney says that, while Kaiser claims are nearly identical to the kind of claims that he sees in the general healthcare population against hospitals and doctors such as surgical errors, misdiagnosis of cancer and misdiagnosis of infections in children, miscommunication between medical staff at Kaiser Permanente and a lack of continuity of care often lead to Kaiser medical malpractice claims. He told us, “In addition to those claims, I also am finding that there are more claims with Kaiser that concern failures of communication between different people at Kaiser, such as lab technicians to doctors, doctors to doctors or nurses to doctors.”
Why is communication at Kaiser such an issue?
Dorit says that there's always been a lack of continuity of care at Kaiser and it has been struggling to address it. He thinks the reason for the miscommunication is that Kaiser has a group of salaried physicians who work at different shifts. He explained:
[W]hen a patient would come in, they would often see whoever happened to be working that day. It may have been a doctor who was not familiar with their history or their current condition, and that’s led to problems. Kaiser now tries to assign what they call a primary care physician, or a PCP, to help monitor patient problems on a more continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is still a lingering issue in the Kaiser process.I just finished a case with a Kaiser patient who became quite ill and had to go to a non-Kaiser hospital in an extreme status on a Saturday morning. They were not able to contact the patient’s doctor at Kaiser over the weekend, which was too late. The patient died before they could get a hold of the doctor on Monday. So, it would’ve been helpful to have had access to the actual doctor, but the system was such that it wasn’t available to the patient's wife.
It's these types of situations that simply shouldn't happen. If you've been injured due to medical malpractice in the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system, contact an experienced Kaiser Permanente Medical and Hospital Malpractice attorney to discuss your situation. You may be entitled to compensation for your injuries such as lost wages, medical bills and damages for unnecessary pain and suffering.
The foregoing article has been prepared by an attorney who is a regular contributor to FreeAdvice, and is now undergoing review by the site's editorial staff.