Medical error is a major cause of injury in the United States. Unthinkable mistakes can occur even at pediatric hospitals caring for the most vulnerable patients: sick and injured children.
When parents have reason to believe that their child’s care at a Nemours Children’s Health facility or another pediatric hospital in Pennsylvania may constitute malpractice, they turn to our experienced hospital negligence attorneys. We can investigate any potential malpractice and represent the families of injured children on a no-win, no-fee basis.
Our Pennsylvania medical malpractice attorneys are here to answer your questions and evaluate your case at no charge. Just call (866) 778-5500 today for a free, confidential consultation.
Nemours Children’s Health operates pediatric hospitals, primary care facilities, urgent care facilities, and specialty care facilities in five states. Today, Nemours Children’s Health bills itself as “one of the nation’s leading children’s health systems.”
The Nemours Foundation was established in 1936 by the vision of philanthropist Alfred I. duPont, who passed away in 1935 and provided for the foundation’s formation under the terms of his will. The first pediatric facility under the Nemours Foundation, a pediatric orthopedic hospital then called the Alfred I. duPont Institute, opened in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1940.
In addition to the two freestanding pediatric hospitals Nemours operates today—Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, and Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Florida—the Nemours Children’s Health System, in collaboration with Jefferson Health, provides care specifically for child and teen patients at two hospitals in Pennsylvania.
Nemours Children’s Health also operates six specialty care pediatric facilities across PA, including:
One way to assess the overall safety of a hospital is to look at grades and lists compiled by the independent nonprofit patient health and safety organization The Leapfrog Group.
Although the Leapfrog Group has repeatedly named Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Florida, among the top children’s hospitals in the nation, neither Pennsylvania Nemours Children’s Health facility has yet achieved this recognition over the more than 15 years the organization has compiled these ratings.
Neither Nemours Children’s Health at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital nor Nemours Children’s Health at Jefferson Abington Hospital has been graded by The Leapfrog Group as of early 2023, but the Leapfrog Group has awarded Hospital Safety Grades to these facilities as a whole.
To Jefferson Abington Hospital, the Leapfrog Group awarded a letter grade of “A” in the fall of 2022, as it had during the previous seven grading periods.
The Leapfrog Group awarded Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia a letter grade of “B” in the fall of 2022, as it had during the previous four grading periods.
Medical errors can occur at any hospital or medical facility, even those that have good overall reputations and safety ratings. When they do—even when parents have reasons to question whether a medical error occurred in the course of their child’s care—it’s essential that you have an attorney with experience in medical malpractice law review the case.
What Nemours Children’s Health Patients (and Their Parents) Should Know About Medical Malpractice
Malpractice cases are complicated. Here’s what patients and parents should know about the medical malpractice claims process and suing a hospital for a medical error.
You are not alone.
Medical malpractice cases are civil legal matters that arise out of alleged negligence on the part of a hospital, a doctor, or another healthcare professional. Through a medical malpractice claim, an injured patient can seek financial compensation for the harm they have suffered and all of their related losses.
Medical errors may include actions that a healthcare provider took, such as performing an unnecessary procedure on a patient or botching a surgery. They can also include omissions and failures to take action, including failures to diagnose a condition that other doctors would have diagnosed or neglecting to order the indicated treatment.
In either case, care that constitutes medical malpractice deviates in some way from the standard of care established by the larger medical community.
Unfortunately, unfavorable outcomes can occur in healthcare even when the provider does all the right things. The question hospital negligence lawyers must ask to determine whether malpractice has occurred is whether the facility or provider’s actions (or lack thereof) were reasonable compared to what other facilities or providers would do.
The criteria to have a claim against a Nemours Children’s Health hospital revolves mainly around the answers to two questions:
If it turns out that the provider’s actions were in line with the standard of care, you will not have the grounds for a claim, even if a negative outcome occurred from the testing or treatment in question.
Once it has been established that some sort of medical negligence occurred, the next step is to determine what the patient’s damages are. The damages in a hospital negligence lawsuit can encompass harms and losses like the following:
How do Pennsylvania medical negligence lawyers begin to evaluate whether a situation meets the criteria for a successful malpractice lawsuit?
When our hospital malpractice lawyers evaluate a potential claim, we start by listening to the facts of the case (as you know them) and by reviewing the patient’s medical records. As our hospital malpractice attorneys move forward with our investigation, we seek out the opinions of expert witnesses—doctors who can speak to how the facility’s or provider’s actions compare with the standard of care. We also start to calculate the damages for which you may be able to seek compensation if you were to pursue a claim.
Pursuing a hospital malpractice claim can be costly. Just getting input from medical experts can add up to thousands of dollars. When we review a potential claim, we do so at no charge. If you hire us to represent you in your case, we cover all upfront costs of pursuing the case and represent our clients on a no-win, no-fee basis.
We are here to help.
Instances of medical malpractice that occur in Pennsylvania hospitals are subject to PA’s statute of limitations. This law establishes a deadline by which claimants must move forward with a legal matter. When you don’t take action—which, in this case, means filing a lawsuit—by this deadline, your legal right to seek compensation may expire.
If you miss the statute of limitations, you may never be able to get the compensation you’re entitled to. That’s why it’s so important for medical malpractice victims and their families to take action promptly.
In Pennsylvania, medical malpractice cases against a doctor or a hospital like Nemours Children’s Health facilities are typically subject to a two-year statute of limitations. Under the “discovery rule,” this two-year time limit generally begins when a person becomes aware or should have become aware that malpractice has occurred.
Because Nemours facilities are pediatric hospitals, many of their patients were minors at the time the alleged malpractice occurred. For minors, the statute of limitations generally does not begin to run until the individual’s 18th birthday. If a patient injured as a minor does not file their hospital negligence lawsuit by their 20th birthday, they will have missed the deadline to move forward with their claim.
Even though minors have more time to file a lawsuit than adult patients, they don’t have to wait until they turn 18 to move forward with a case—and they shouldn’t. When parents take action promptly instead of waiting for the legal deadline to approach, child victims of medical malpractice can receive the compensation they need earlier. This allows them to secure the best medical care and puts them on the path to making the best possible physical recovery or having the best possible quality of life.
The first step to filing a hospital negligence lawsuit is simple: just reach out to an experienced hospital malpractice lawyer for a free case review.
Medical malpractice is so common that Johns Hopkins Medicine reported in 2016 that medical error was the third leading cause of death in the United States. Each year, upwards of 250,000 people lose their lives to medical errors, the researchers reported. Countless more victims of medical errors suffer serious injuries that may change their lives forever.
In hospitals, some of the most common lethal medical errors reported include hospital-acquired infections, unnecessary surgeries, and hospital medication errors, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported.
Pennsylvania consistently ranks as one of the top five states with the highest medical malpractice payouts. The National Practitioner Data Bank’s Medical Malpractice Payout Report showed that $10,232,740,000 in compensation was paid out in medical malpractice claims—36,843 cases in all—between 1990 and 2020.
In 2020 alone, 1,476 medical malpractice lawsuits were filed in Pennsylvania, The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania reported.
A medical malpractice lawsuit takes time. Throughout every stage of the legal process, our hospital malpractice lawyers will keep you updated, answer your questions, and represent your interests in legal proceedings and settlement negotiations.
Pursuing a hospital negligence lawsuit with our attorneys on your side will cost you nothing upfront. Under our No Fee Promise, we represent every one of our clients on a no-win, no-fee basis. You will only ever pay in attorneys’ fees a fraction of the compensation we are able to secure for you, and if we aren’t successful in getting you money damages, you owe us nothing.
At Console & Associates, P.C., we have decades of experience fighting for injured victims and their families. We begin each case we take on with a free, confidential consultation and a thorough investigation. When you choose us to represent you in a hospital malpractice claim against a Nemours Children’s Health facility, you’ll pay nothing for our services unless and until we succeed in getting you compensation.
If you’re ready to get answers to the lingering questions about the medical care your child received, we’re ready to help. Call Console & Associates, P.C. at (866) 778-5500 or complete our online form to get your case reviewed today at no charge.
