Hospital Transfer Delay Cases and Emergency Preparedness

While hospitals frequently advertise that they’re ready for any emergency, in many instances, that’s just not true.  Many Florida hospitals lack the services needed to deal with certain emergencies, causing a transfer delay.  While patients assume that a hospital has every type of doctor available at a moment’s notice, this is not the case at most hospitals. The most common service necessitating transfer is neurosurgery.

So what does a hospital do when they lack the capability of treating a patient that walks in their door? They have to transfer the patient to somewhere that has what the patient needs.  A delay in transfer could result in further injuries or even death, potentially constituting medical malpractice.

A transfer may seem simple to most people. What’s so hard about putting a patient in an ambulance and sending them somewhere else? The truth is it’s not quite that simple. A receiving facility has to agree to “accept” the patient, which often involves a discussion between the attending doctor at the original hospital and a specialist at the receiving facility who agrees that he or she can be available to assist the patient.

The hospital that accepts the patient may be down the road, or may be across the state, and transportation needs to be arranged to get the patient from point A to point B. That could involve an ambulance, or it could involve a helicopter.

As you may be able to tell, there are opportunities for delay inherent in this situation. First, a doctor needs to reach a conclusion about what is most likely going on with the patient, and what specialty care they need. Once they recognize what specialty care they need, they need to reach a conclusion about whether that care is available at the hospital, and in what time frame. If that specialist is unavailable in the time frame the patient needs, the transfer process needs to be initiated.

Hospitals that are ready for transfers have dedicated personnel (or even third party services) that are trained to tackle the transfer in the most efficient way possible. Others delegate this task to already overburdened nursing staff, who may be bogged down with important patient care responsibilities.

From a patient’s perspective, or the perspective of a waiting family member, every minute spent waiting for a transfer may feel like an eternity. And once the patient arrives where they need to go and gets the care they so desperately needed, it may be too late to make a difference in their outcome. Was the transfer negligently delayed? The answers are not likely to be found in the patient’s medical records.

This case is a sobering reminder that even licensed care facilities can fall dangerously short. But Florida law allows families to pursue justice—and prevent future tragedies—by holding negligent providers accountable in court.

Many Hospitals and third party services record transfer coordinator conversations (and even physician-specialist conversations) for quality assurance, or take detailed notes. These recordings and notes are not kept with the patient’s chart, and might even be destroyed under routine business practices if they’re not timely requested.

If you or a family member are concerned that your time sensitive condition was not timely treated because of a slow transfer, you should contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney. Just because your transfer took a long time does not necessarily mean there was negligence involved, but your lawyer will need to know where to look and who to ask to find the answer.

Ultimately, if you feel that a hospital’s negligence caused or contributed to your injury or the death of a loved one—which resulted due to a hosptial transfer delay —you should contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney at Paul Trial Group to give you advice.

Sources:

• https://paultrialgroup.com/medical-malpractice/hospital-malpractice/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5119525/
• https://www.aha.org/issue-brief/2022-12-05-patients-and-providers-faced-increasing-delays-timely-discharges