The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

As you may have noticed in your doctor’s office, paper charts are gradually being replaced with electronic charts. In an effort to minimize the number of medical mistakes made due to problems with paper information (poor handwriting, difficult to read prescriptions, etc.), many offices, clinics, hospitals and VA facilities are instituting all-electronic medical charting. But something terrible and potentially-deadly is happening: computer glitches are causing patients to have completely inaccurate information in their medical record.

Notably, patients at Veterans’ Administration Hospitals in the United States have been given incorrect doses, have had treatments delayed, and have had their vitals and drug allergies show up incorrectly due to maybe seconds-long computer glitches. Imagine being in an emergency room with chest pain and having the ER doc look at his computer for your stats and they are not even yours! Faulty displays of electronic medical records will prove to be deadly if something is not done to correct this problem immediately.

The VA hospitals’ recent glitches involved vital signs, lab results and active medications showing up on the computer screen, but they belonged to another patient. Nearly one-third of the VA’s 153 facilities reported seeing some kind of error in patient charts. This number is most likely even higher because some facilities may not have reported glitches yet.

If you or a loved one has suffered due to a medical mistake, please contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at The Cochran Firm, serving clients all across the United States.