In normal circumstances, hospitals are responsible for the malpractice cases involving their employees. These are doctors, nurses, and even janitors. The only difference occurs when doctors are contracted by the hospital to administer certain services.
When doctors serve as contractors, they are held responsible for any cases of malpractice they may engage in. To ensure this happens, a patient is always made aware that such doctors are independent of the hospital.
However, it is not easy to communicate this in emergency rooms for two reasons:
- When a patient comes in with an emergency, he or she goes to the emergency room, not to a doctor.
- There is limited time to inform such a patient about the status of the practitioner in attendance.
In such cases, hospitals are held responsible for the medical malpractices of all ER practitioners, including independent doctors.
Generally, all employees who are hired by a hospital are regarded to be acting within the scope of employment. There are only very few instances where ER personnel can be held directly liable for an act of negligence. At The Law Offices of Sean M. Cleary, we are experts in determining responsibility in such cases. Relying on us in your emergency room malpractices case makes it so much easier to determine who is directly responsible.