As a parent, when your child is injured or ill, you trust healthcare providers to promptly and correctly diagnose and treat them. Whether it is an emergency that brings you to an emergency room where things can feel chaotic and overwhelming or a sick child visit to a quiet pediatrician’s office and soothingly private exam room, communication is always key to ensuring your child is appropriately diagnosed and treated. When communication breaks down for any reason, it can result in medical errors. If you and your child are fortunate, these errors will be harmless. However, in many cases, they can cause significant harm to a child. A study published by the National Library of Medicine found that 30.4% of parent-reported medical errors were harmful errors related to diagnosis, procedure, medication, or other care or therapy, with most errors being diagnosis or procedure-related. If you believe your child suffered unnecessarily due to errors caused by a breakdown in communication, a New Mexico pediatric medical negligence attorney at Erin Marshall Law may be able to assist you in receiving the compensation you and your child deserve under the law. Call (505) 218-9949 to book a complimentary consultation and review your case.
What Are Pediatric Medical Errors?
To understand how communication breakdowns cause pediatric medical errors, it is essential to understand what a medical error is. Pediatric medical errors are healthcare mistakes that occur in and can cause harm to children. Medical errors can also happen to adults, but they may be more problematic in children as children often cannot describe their pain or symptoms as well as adults can. Children also cannot participate in their healthcare the way adults can, which can lead to further problems.
Types of Medical Errors
Medical errors can describe various events, including diagnostics, medication, surgical, or communication failures. Within these categories, a variety of errors can occur. Some examples of pediatric medical errors include:
- Medication Errors: Prescribing (prescribing or filing the wrong medication), dosage (under or overdosing), administration (giving the patient the wrong medication form, or at the wrong time, or administering the medication more than once), dispensing (miscalculating the dose, failing to identify drug interactions or contraindications), and transcribing (putting the wrong medication name, dose, or other information in the patient’s record, typing in a soundalike medication when a physician provides an oral prescription) errors can all occur with medication.
- Diagnostic Errors: Misinterpreting the symptoms or failing to diagnose a condition accurately.
- Surgical Errors: Mistakes made before, during, or after surgery, such as marking the wrong area, operating on the wrong area, or leaving surgical instruments or other items in the patient.
- Other Errors: Other errors that could potentially harm a child patient include medical equipment malfunctions, patient falls, or hospital-acquired infections.
Most Common Pediatric Medical Errors
The National Institutes of Health reports that medication errors are the most common medical errors, despite an awareness that children are at an increased risk of medication errors. Failing to diagnose or misdiagnosing children is the second most common pediatric medical error.
What Are Communication Breakdowns and Why Are They So Dangerous?
Communication breakdowns occur when communication goes wrong or ceases to work between healthcare providers or between healthcare providers and patients and their families. Effective communication among all healthcare providers involved in a child’s case, the child (when the child is old enough to participate), and the child’s family is key to ensuring care teams are properly informed and the child receives top-notch care. When communication breaks down, this leads to misunderstandings or errors. Communication gaps and other communication issues can cause dangers to patient safety or poor overall healthcare efficiency, harming the patient or prolonging their suffering.
A lack of communication, or unclear communication, can lead to various pediatric medical errors, but the most common errors it can cause are medication errors, misdiagnoses, and treatment delays. Many parents blame themselves when there is a communication breakdown, assuming their lack of medical knowledge and training is responsible. However, communication breakdowns can be the provider’s fault, particularly when the breakdown occurs between two or more healthcare providers and does not include the patient or the patient’s family. Understanding the different ways communication can break down and how it can impact a child’s care can help parents learn how to communicate more effectively with their children’s providers and may help reduce medical errors.
Communication Breakdowns and Medication Errors
The most common pediatric medical errors resulting from a breakdown in communication are medication errors. These errors can occur for multiple reasons, including:
- Poor communication between the caregivers and clinicians
- Caregiver misunderstanding, such as mistakenly thinking that “give this medicine twice a day” means to give the medication twice during daylight hours rather than twice in 24 hours
- Language barriers
- Lack of clear information, such as when a provider does not explain why a medication is being given or the importance of taking a full course of antibiotics even after the patient is feeling better
- Providing oral prescriptions instead of written ones could allow for soundalike drugs to be given by mistake or the wrong dosage or form of the drug to be prescribed because the other person misheard or mistyped the information in the system (this can apply to both a doctor calling a prescription into a pharmacy or providing oral orders to a nurse in a hospital to administer medication)
- Failure to accurately update information, such as when a parent forgets to tell a provider about another medication the child is taking, when a provider fails to update the child’s record to reflect all the medicines they take or when they last received a dose of a medication, or updating the record with the wrong information
Communication Problems and Misdiagnoses or Treatment Delays
Communication is also critical to accurately diagnosing and treating pediatric patients. Medical errors can occur when there is a lack of communication regarding symptoms, how long the child has been ill or when the injury occurred, or other details. Communication problems that can lead to misdiagnoses or treatment delays include:
- Inadequate information gathering, such as when a healthcare provider does not ask for more information from a parent if the parent has not provided all the information needed
- Conflicting information, such as if one parent says the child has been ill for two days and the other parent says the child has been ill for two weeks, or they describe different symptoms
- Failure to address concerns, such as if a parent expresses concern that their child is exhibiting a particular symptom and the provider tells them it is nothing or focuses on other symptoms and ignores that symptom
- Lack of continuity of care, which occurs when one healthcare provider transfers the child’s care to another provider and does not give the new provider all of the information about the child’s condition, diagnosis, treatments, and other information that would allow the latest provider to care for the child as if they had been caring for them from the beginning
Other Communication Factors Contributing to Pediatric Medical Errors
Many other communication factors can contribute to medication errors, diagnosis and treatment errors, or other pediatric medical errors. Recognizing these communication issues can also help parents be alert to potential problems before they happen.
Limited Health Literacy
Health literacy is the ability to access, understand, and use health services and information to make informed decisions about one’s healthcare or another individual’s healthcare. This can include using websites to learn about health conditions, medications, treatments, and other health information, discerning reliable information sources from unreliable ones, and understanding and applying this information to make informed decisions and advocate for themselves or others.
Children under a certain age do not have this literacy, which is why their parents make healthcare-related decisions on their behalf. However, if the parents have limited health literacy, they may be unable to access or understand the information needed to make informed decisions. If healthcare providers are unwilling or unable to recognize limited health literacy and reframe the information they provide in a way that makes it more understandable to the parent, the parent may not grasp what is happening and may agree to treatments or medications they otherwise would not. This can cause medical errors if the child has an allergic reaction to a drug or the medication interacts with another one the child takes, or if the treatment is not appropriate for the illness or injury.
Cultural Differences
Cultural differences can significantly impact healthcare, particularly in New Mexico, where there are large numbers of Hispanic people from various countries and Native Americans who have specific values based on the tribe or nation they belong to. Cultural differences can range from language barriers that create misunderstandings to the use of interpreters who may not interpret the information correctly or may not be used at all if the patient or their family is not comfortable.
Additionally, different cultures have different communication styles, with varying levels of eye contact, directness, and formality. Respect for authority figures, such as doctors, or emphasizing family involvement in decisions may also influence how the patient or their family interacts with healthcare providers. Other cultural differences that can impact communication include implicit bias on the part of the healthcare provider, systemic inequalities that disproportionately affect certain cultural groups, and lack of cultural competency training that hinders the provider’s ability to communicate effectively with diverse populations.
Lack of Standardized Communication Protocols
A lack of standardized communication protocols can cause errors, delays, and misinterpretations, potentially jeopardizing patient care and safety and hindering effective collaboration and information sharing between healthcare providers. Without protocols, there is an increased risk of errors, communication gaps, ineffective handovers, and reduced collaboration, all of which can contribute to duplicated testing and medications, delayed diagnoses and treatments, or conflicting treatments.
Standardized communication protocols that can reduce pediatric medical errors include a transparent system for patient handover during shift changes or when sharing information between providers for collaboration and a consistent process for relaying test results to patients. If the facility or provider did not have standardized communication protocols and you believe this may have contributed to the medical errors your child suffered, Erin Marshall Law may be able to assist in building a case to show that neglecting this critical aspect of healthcare harmed your child so the provider can be held accountable for the financial and emotional toll of this negligence on your child and your family.
Understaffing and Long Work Hours
Healthcare providers nationwide are pressed for time, with increasingly heavy workloads and shorter time to spend with patients. This is particularly true for New Mexico, with New Mexico Health’s Office of Health Equity reporting that the state suffers from a shortage of healthcare providers, negatively impacting access to treatment and preventive care. More than 22% of New Mexico residents live in a primary healthcare desert, meaning they do not have easy access to basic healthcare. Add to this that New Mexico also has an older physician population who are retiring at rapid rates and not being replaced by younger physicians due to the low pay, and it is easy to see that many New Mexico providers are understaffed and working long hours.
Unfortunately, this lack of staffing and extended work hours often leads to a lack of attention to detail. Conversations between providers and between providers and patients become rushed, details are missed, and incomplete information is shared. Often, patients in these situations feel rushed, ignored, brushed off, or as if they are an annoyance, and as a result, may not ask questions that they should. Sometimes, they are unsure what questions to ask, and when they think of questions later, they either do not contact the provider or do not receive a call or other contact in return for answering those questions.
Lack of Patient and Family Involvement
Sometimes, patients or their families are not as involved as they could or should be. For example, the parents of a teenager may believe their child is old enough to handle matters themselves and not get involved so that their teen can learn independence and responsibility. The adult child of an elderly parent may be working full-time and raising children and rely on their parent to relay information from their doctor’s appointments. Unfortunately, that information is incorrect or incomplete due to cognitive issues, and the child does not realize they need to do more for their parent.
How a Medical Negligence Attorney Can Assist You
Medical errors can range from harmless to catastrophic. Even the most seemingly harmless error can be terrifying when it happens to your child. If your child has suffered due to a medical error, whether as the result of a communication breakdown or other reasons, an experienced New Mexico pediatric medical negligence attorney with Erin Marshall Law may be able to assist you in understanding your legal rights and options for filing a claim and receiving the compensation you may be entitled to under the law. Call (505) 218-9949 to book your consultation, review your case, and learn about possible next steps.
