35

years of
experience
on your side
414-727-2200

Quick Help

Please tell us your story

Milwaukee Hospital Medical Malpractice Attorney

For over 35 years, David Lowe has been representing clients confronted with a wide variety of challenges. Whether the claim is big or small, involves temporary pain and disability, permanent injury or wrongful death, or a business involved in a dispute, the Law Offices of David Lowe will provide skilled and experienced legal representation in the following practice areas:While medical and hospital malpractice and errors are fairly rare, when these events happen, it's important to have legal representation for the patient and the family to be properly compensated. Unnecessary invasive procedures, mixed up medication, disability and even death can occur due to mistakes by doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. As an experienced hospital malpractice lawyer, David Lowe helps victims and their families address these usually preventable medical mistakes.

The National Quality Forum has identified 29 events that should never occur, and refers to them as “Never Events.” Each event falls into one of six categories: surgical, product or device, patient protection, care management, environmental, radiologic, and criminal. Wrong-site surgery is the most reported Never Event, followed by suicide, op/post-op complication, delay in treatment, medication error, and patient fall. If one of the following Never Events has happened to you or a family member, contact attorney David Lowe for the experienced legal support you deserve.

The National Quality Forum's Health Care "Never Events"

Surgical Events

  1. Surgery on the wrong body part.
  2. Surgery on the wrong patient.
    • Mixed up lab results, contaminated testing equipment and mixed up patient documents are just a few of the preventable causes.
  3. Wrong surgical procedure performed on a patient.
  4. Foreign object left in a patient after surgery or other procedure.
    • Medical tools and equipment such as forceps, needles, towels, metallic clips, and lap sponges can be left in a body and cause pain, injuries to organs, and even death.
  5. Death during or immediately after surgery or other procedure on a normally healthy patient, in which anesthesia was administered.
    • More specifically, death or disability in patients that have low surgical risk and are the easiest to care for under anesthesia during operations.

Product or Device Events

  1. Death or serious injury associated with the use of contaminated drugs, devices, or biologics.
  2. Death or serious injury associated with the use or function of a device, in situations where the device is used improperly or in ways it shouldn't be.
  3. Death or serious injury associated with intravascular air embolism.
    • Air can get into the bloodstream through IV lines commonly used in many medical procedures and treatments.

Patient Protection Events

  1. Discharge or release of a patient or resident who is unable to make decisions to other than an authorized person.
    • Some of the health facilities that are liable include hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, outpatient surgery centers and ambulatory practices.
  2. Death or serious disability associated with patient disappearance.
  3. Suicide, attempted suicide, or self-harm resulting in serious disability.
    • For patients considered at risk for suicide or self-harm, the health care professionals responsible for patient care must take precautions to prevent these events from happening.

Care Management Events

  1. Death or serious injury associated with a medication error. For example, errors involving the wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong patient, wrong time, wrong rate, wrong preparation, or wrong route of administration.
  2. Death or serious injury associated with unsafe administration of blood products.
    • Medical malpractice can occur when the blood is given to the wrong patient, the patient is given the wrong type of blood, or blood products are improperly stored or handled.
  3. Maternal death or serious injury associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy.
  4. Death or serious injury of a newborn child under four weeks old associated with labor or delivery in a low-risk pregnancy.
  5. Artificial insemination with the wrong donor sperm or wrong egg.
  6. Death or serious injury from a fall in a hospital or health care setting.
  7. Stage 3, 4, or unstageable pressure ulcers developed in a health care facility.
  8. Death or serious disability resulting from the irretrievable loss of an irreplaceable biological specimen.
    • When specimens are not properly identified and the procedure to get the sample cannot be done again, an undiagnosed disease or threat of disease can have a serious negative impact on the patient.
  9. Death or serious injury resulting from failure to follow up or communicate laboratory, pathology, or radiology test results.

Environmental Events

  1. Patient or staff death or serious disability associated with an electric shock.
  2. Any incident in which a line designated for oxygen or other gas for a patient contains no gas, the wrong gas, or is contaminated by toxic substances.
  3. Patient or staff death or serious injury associated with a burn during patient care.
  4. Death or serious injury associated with the use of, or failure to use, restraints or bedrails.

Radiologic Events

  1. Death or serious injury of a patient or staff associated with introduction of a metallic object into the MRI area.

Criminal Events

  1. Any instance of care ordered or provided by someone impersonating a physician, nurse, pharmacist, or other licensed health care provider.
  2. Abduction of a patient or resident.
  3. Sexual abuse/assault on a patient.
  4. Death or significant injury of a patient or staff member resulting from a physical assault.