Breakdowns in hospital communication cause serious injuries when medical professionals fail to share or act on crucial, patient-specific information during consultations, shift handovers, and interdepartmental transfers. The main reason hospitals rarely admit to communication errors after a patient gets harmed is to avoid legal and financial liability.
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A lawyer can determine if you have a medical malpractice case if you were injured because of breakdowns in hospital communication. The lawyer can also help you compile enough evidence and build a strong case against the responsible hospital or healthcare provider.
Were you seriously injured because of a breakdown in hospital communication? Our medical malpractice lawyers at Ankin Law can examine your case, find out what went wrong, and discuss legal options available to you. Call 312-600-0000 today to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation.
Where Hospital Communication Failures Most Often Lead to Patient Harm
Illinois recorded 1,334 adverse action reports and paid 287 medical malpractice claims in 2025. These medical malpractice incidents and claims most likely stemmed from breakdowns in hospital communications. Common areas where hospital communication failures most often leave patients with serious injuries include:
Shift Changes and Interdepartmental Transfers
Patients are more likely to get harmed due to hospital communication failures during shift handover or transfer from one department to another. The outgoing team may fail to update the handover file with crucial information, including the patient’s condition, upcoming assessments, medicines, or new developments. The outcome is that the incoming team will be relying on incomplete information to treat and care for the patient.
The patient may get harmed or develop serious complications because of a delayed diagnosis, treatment, or medical mistakes arising from missing or inaccurate records. Failing to include information regarding a recently discovered allergy, for instance, may cause the new team to unsuspectingly administer a medication that triggers a life-threatening reaction in the patient.
Operating Rooms
Operating rooms are high-risk settings where information must be clear and accurate. Confusion regarding a surgical procedure, site, or equipment can lead to life-altering errors, such as unnecessary surgery, wrong-site procedure, and infections. In fact, surgical errors contribute to more than 25% of all medical malpractice cases nationwide.
Emergency Rooms (ERs)
ERs are another high-pressure environment where communication errors happen. Staff receive several patients in a critical state and handle them simultaneously. They may also be working in noisy environments and making or receiving phone calls to address urgent cases. All these factors increase the likelihood of forgetting or missing important information about a patient.
Medication Administration Areas
Errors that leave patients seriously harmed, or even dead are common in medical administration areas or pharmacies. Communication breakdowns in these areas happen because of unclear or unreadable prescriptions, misunderstood verbal orders, and missing allergy information. Such failures can lead to overdoses or serious allergic reactions.
Discharge from Hospital
Patients are more likely to get readmitted, sustain injuries, or even die if discharge instructions are unclear, missing, or misleading. An inaccurate medication list, for instance, may cause hospital staff to put patients on medications they were deliberately discontinued during admission. Patients may also mismanage medications and increase their risk of readmission when communication during discharge is ambiguous or nonexistent.
How Miscommunication Between Medical Staff Causes Preventable Injuries
Miscommunication between medical staff accounts for most of the avoidable patient injuries and ensuing hospital malpractice cases globally. Inaccurate, delayed, misinterpreted, or undisclosed information can leave patients with serious and life-altering complications. Miscommunication among medical staff causes preventable injuries in the following ways:
Poor or Incomplete Patient Handoffs
Staff may omit or unclearly communicate crucial patient information during shift handover or department-to-department transfers. They may, for instance, fail to communicate new allergies detected, stopped medications, changes in the patient’s condition, or pending diagnostic tests or results. The outcome is serious allergic responses, medication overdoses, or misdiagnosis that becomes medical malpractice.
Misunderstood or Ignored Oral Instructions
Staff may misunderstand, ignore, or forget verbal instructions, especially in hectic environments like the emergency room, surgical suite, and ICU. A nurse may, for instance, administer too little or too much medication because of a misunderstanding or forgetting a physician’s oral instructions. An overdose can trigger toxic reactions in the patient or even organ failure. An underdose, on the other hand, can lead to failed treatment, worsening of the existing condition, and development of new complications.
Poor pre-operative communication can cause the surgical team to operate on the wrong body part. In extreme cases of communication breakdown, the surgical team may operate on the wrong patient.
Failure to Convey Diagnostic Test Results to the Treating Teams
Unavoidable injuries may also stem from diagnostic communication breakdowns. Lab staff may conduct diagnostic tests and detect unusual values, but fail to communicate that information to the treating physician. Preventable injuries that result from failure to relay test results to the treating teams include delayed cancer diagnosis, missed infections, unresolved internal bleeding, and worsening of existing conditions.
Documentation Issues
Medical records are essential in making accurate and well-informed treatment decisions. Missing or unclear information on the patient’s chart and copy-and-paste mistakes in electronic documents can alter the medical record. Other providers may rely on this inaccurate record and make misinformed treatment decisions.
Why Hospitals Rarely Acknowledge Communication Errors After an Injury
One of the key reasons hospitals rarely acknowledge communication errors after a preventable injury is the fear of legal and financial liability. Healthcare providers often believe that acknowledging an error is equivalent to admitting liability. They might use vague medical terms to describe the event or provide inadequate explanations to avoid being held legally and financially accountable.
The organizational culture may influence healthcare providers’ response. Some hospitals treat communication mistakes as individual blunders instead of system failures. Medical professionals may fail to self-report or accurately document failures for fear of facing disciplinary actions, getting fired, or getting named in lawsuits as defendants.
Insurance companies may also dictate how hospitals communicate, investigate, and document communication mistakes after an injury. They may discourage healthcare providers from acknowledging an error to strengthen their negotiation position or defense strategies for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Conversations with affected patients and their loved ones may focus on internal investigations or system failure instead of miscommunications between medical staff.
Hospitals have a legal obligation to communicate crucial patient information correctly and promptly. Patients harmed due to violation of this duty have a right to hold those responsible accountable. Contact Ankin Law today to discuss your case with one of our seasoned medical malpractice lawyers and discover how we can help you secure maximum compensation.
FAQs
How does poor communication in a hospital cause serious injuries?
Missing information, such as newly discovered allergies, during shift change or departmental transfers, can cause serious allergic reactions. A patient may get operated on incorrectly because of unclear medical documentation or inadequate pre-operative communication. A patient may suffer catastrophic cardiac arrest when nurses fail to document life-threatening vital sign changes. Additionally, patients may misuse medications, get readmitted, or even lose their lives when hospital staff provide unclear or confusing discharge instructions.
Who is responsible when miscommunication leads to medical harm?
Responsibility for medical harm caused by miscommunication may be shared between an individual healthcare provider and the hospital. Individual healthcare providers, such as nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and surgeons, must convey accurate patient information to other involved providers on time. Hospitals, on the other hand, must ensure a smooth flow of information during shift handoffs and departmental transfers.
Can a medical malpractice lawyer prove a communication breakdown caused my injury?
A medical malpractice lawyer can demonstrate that your injury directly resulted from a communication breakdown by obtaining and carefully examining your medical records. The lawyer reviews your chart to look for omitted, delayed, or inaccurate information. Perfect examples include failure to record an allergy or changes in vital signs. The lawyer also works closely with a medical expert to show the communication breakdown was a deviation from the accepted standards of care and another similarly trained provider would have communicated effectively.
