In order to hold a hospital liable for hospital misdiagnosis, patients and their legal counsel are tasked with establishing several elements of a viable claims case, as well as establishing the relationship a hospital has with potentially liable defendants.
Establishing Whether a Viable Misdiagnosis Claims Case Exists
The first step to holding a hospital liable for medical misdiagnosis entails patients proving that a viable medical malpractice claim related to misdiagnosis actually exists. This will require patients to prove the following elements, including that a relationship existed between the hospital, a doctor, and the patient, the doctor failed to meet a standard duty of care by providing the misdiagnosis, and that the misdiagnosis was the proximate cause of viable damage claims made by patient. Normally, these elements are included in every medical malpractice claim involving a physician or healthcare worker, but including the hospital as a viable liable defendant in a claims case requires additional considerations.
The Hospital-Doctor-Patient Relationship and Liability
The hospital itself will not directly offer a misdiagnosis to a given patient, but rather, a single physician is often the one tasked with evaluating a patient and offering their diagnosis. The relationship between the doctor and the hospital where a diagnosis occurred, however, may result in a hospital being held liable for the misdiagnosis, in the following scenarios, including:
- If a doctor is an employee of the hospital, the hospital may be held liable for any medical malpractice claim stemming from misdiagnosis
- If the doctor works within the confines of a hospital, but is not considered an employee, the hospital may still be held liable if the patient and their legal counsel can prove the semblance of an employer-employee relationship existed, based on legal precedents in other malpractice cases
- If the doctor operates within the confines of a given hospital, but has not employee-employer relationship with a given hospital, but the hospital has reason to believe or knows the given doctor is incompetent, performs unethically, or otherwise would be liability to any given patient, the hospital may still be held liable as well. This method, out of the three mentioned above, would be most difficult to establish and prove
- If the doctor did not function as an employee of a hospital, but while working in the confines of a given hospital, the doctor relied on diagnostic tools and other laboratory type diagnostic equipment, which were provided by a hospital and ultimately were deemed faulty or malfunctioning, the hospital may also be held liable
Getting Legal Help
Any medical malpractice claim, especially those involving medical misdiagnosis that seek to implicate a hospital as a defendant, will require a sound and documentable legal basis for the claim to be successful. This can only truly be achieved through the use of an experienced medical malpractice claims attorney, who understands the legal relationship between a negligent doctor and the extent of liability a hospital incurs for their actions.
