Medical negligence lawyers in Orlando may have an idea about which Central Florida hospitals are the safest. But to lower your chances of becoming a client of a personal injury attorney due to hospital error, you should do a lot of research. Medical malpractice can be devastating.
You don’t always get to choose which hospital you wind up in. If you are seriously injured in a truck accident or get hit by a car, you go to the nearest trauma center. But if you are considering elective surgery, or have a choice of local hospitals to visit, how do you choose? You naturally want the hospital that provides the best care. You want a facility with the least record of hospital error and medical negligence.
There are a number of sources where you can get some general guidance. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (FAHCA), provides some safety data on its website FloridaHealthFinder.gov. There, the main indicator of hospital quality is the “15-day Readmission rate”. They measure the percentage of patients who had to return for a stay in the hospital with 15 days of discharge. The general idea is that they must not have fixed you up all the way if you had to be readmitted within two weeks.
Orlando Medical Negligence Attorneys
You can also get more comprehensive information about specific hospitals. The Facility/Provider search lists all hospital in Florida, and you can sort from there. If you live in the Orlando area, for example, you can get information on Florida Hospital such as inspection reports.
Another, more thorough, source of information is Medicare’s HospitalCompare.gov. This site also uses the star rating system, but it much more comprehensive in its measurements. The main indicators are:
- Mortality
- Safety of Care
- Readmission
- Patient Experience
- Effectiveness of Care
- Timeliness of Care
- Efficient Use of Medical Imaging
You can go to the site and search, say, for acute care hospitals within 25 miles of Orlando. You’ll find that Orlando Health gets four stars, while Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee rates only two stars.
So, do your research before you go to a hospital. But if you do wind up as a medical malpractice, medical negligence, or hospital or doctor error victim, contact the Orlando medical negligence attorneys at Martinez Manglardi. For a free consultation, call 407-846-2240.
