Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital Malpractice Lawyer

Trial-Ready Hospital Negligence Attorneys for Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital Patients and Families

The Types of Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital Lawsuits Our Hospital Malpractice Attorneys Handle

Hastings Law Firm handles Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital lawsuits in Houston, Texas, over labor, delivery and NICU care, surgical care, and emergency department diagnosis. Our hospital malpractice lawyers rebuild each case from the patient’s full chart. We then ask independent physicians to measure every decision in that chart against the accepted standard of care.

The cases we see most often at a community hospital with a Level III NICU like Houston Methodist Willowbrook include:

• Labor, delivery and NICU errors. A worrying fetal heart rate pattern can be left without a response, the decision to perform an emergency cesarean can come too late, or a mother’s bleeding or dangerous blood pressure can be missed. Shoulder dystocia can be handled poorly, and a newborn’s breathing, infection or feeding problem can go unnoticed in the NICU, with harm that can follow a child for life. Our Houston birth injury attorneys and Houston fetal monitoring error lawyers line the monitor tracing up against the nursing flowsheets minute by minute.
• Surgical errors. An organ, the bowel or a blood vessel can be injured during a general, laparoscopic, minimally invasive or robotic-assisted operation, or an instrument or sponge can be left behind. Bleeding or infection can also go unrecognized afterward, leaving the patient facing more surgery and additional recovery time. Our Houston surgical error lawyers check the operative report and the instrument counts against the recovery nursing notes.
• Emergency department diagnosis delays. A scan or lab result can be read late or missed, and chest pain, signs of a stroke or an abdominal emergency can be sent home. A sepsis warning sign can also go without a response, and the hours lost can turn a treatable illness into permanent harm. Our Houston medical misdiagnosis lawyers set the triage times beside the order and result times to show when the answer was available.

While these are common claim types, our hospital malpractice attorneys handle any valid medical negligence case that arises at this hospital.

About Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital and Its Women’s & Children’s Pavilion

Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital is a not-for-profit, faith-based hospital in Houston, as Houston Methodist describes it. Its campus takes in the North Pavilion, the Women’s & Children’s Pavilion, the Centerfield Building and the Hargrave Medical Office Building. The hospital’s own page names emergency care, cardiology, orthopedics and sports medicine, women’s services and neurology among its services.

Mothers and newborns are cared for in the Women’s & Children’s Pavilion, which holds private labor and delivery suites and a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. The hospital’s childbirth center page describes a team of OB-GYNs, midwives, nurses, pediatricians and neonatologists. The Texas Department of State Health Services lists the hospital as a Level III maternal facility.

A single birth there can pass through several teams in the same pavilion. An OB-GYN or midwife and the labor and delivery nurses care for the mother during labor and delivery. Pediatricians then see the newborn, and a baby who needs intensive care moves to the NICU’s neonatologists and nurses. Each of those teams documents its own part of the care, which is why a birth injury review looks at every one of their records.

The emergency department is open 24/7, with an on-site laboratory and full-service X-ray, CT and ultrasound. The campus has operating rooms and outpatient surgery, and its surgical services page lists general emergency surgery along with laparoscopic, minimally invasive and robotic-assisted procedures. The North Pavilion houses a cardiac catheterization lab and a stroke center.

The hospital’s address is 18220 State Hwy. 249, Houston, TX 77070, and the Texas Health and Human Services general and special hospital list places it in Harris County. Our Houston medical malpractice lawyers represent patients and families throughout the city. That includes claims at Houston Methodist Hospital, the system’s separate hospital in Houston, and at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center, a Memorial Hermann hospital.

Can You File a Lawsuit Against Houston Methodist Willowbrook, the Doctor, or Both?

A patient can bring a lawsuit against Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital, the treating doctor, or both, depending on who gave the care and who employed them. As the Texas Supreme Court stated in Baptist Memorial Hospital System v. Sampson, an employer is responsible for negligence by its employees acting within the scope of their employment. Liability for a physician the hospital does not employ rests on some other legal basis.

An obstetrician, surgeon or emergency physician answers for the care that clinician personally gave the patient. Nurses on the hospital’s own staff stand differently, and a labor and delivery nurse the hospital employs is the kind of caregiver whose negligence, within the scope of that work, can become the hospital’s responsibility.

Childbirth and surgery carry real risk, and a difficult outcome is not proof of negligence on its own. Where the harm was preventable, the providers responsible for it should be held accountable. Our Houston hospital malpractice lawyers set out how a hospital’s liability differs from a physician’s.

The chart and staffing records show who employed each nurse and physician involved. A lawyer to sue a hospital sorts that out first, because the answer settles which defendants a Houston Methodist Willowbrook lawsuit can include. Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code then requires a qualified expert’s report, generally within 120 days after each defendant’s original answer. Who qualifies as that expert is the next question.

Does a Medical Expert Have to Be in Active Practice to Testify About Labor and Delivery Care at Houston Methodist Willowbrook Under Texas Law?

A medical expert on labor and delivery care at Houston Methodist Willowbrook generally must be practicing when testifying or when the malpractice claim arose. Sections 74.401 and 74.402 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code set that rule and count some teaching and consulting as practice. A Texas court may depart from those expert criteria for a good reason it states on the record.

The rule works differently depending on whose care is questioned. For an obstetrician or another physician, Section 74.401 requires an expert who is practicing medicine at the time of testimony or was practicing when the claim arose. Texas counts training residents or students at an accredited school of medicine or osteopathy as practicing medicine. Serving as a consulting physician to doctors who give direct patient care, at their request, counts too.

Being in practice is only the threshold for a physician expert. In judging training and experience, the court considers whether the expert is board certified or has other substantial training or experience relevant to the claim. It also considers whether the expert is actively practicing medicine in care relevant to the claim.

A labor and delivery nurse’s care falls under Section 74.402 instead. That expert must practice health care in a field involving the same type of care the nurse gave, either when testifying or when the claim arose. Practicing health care includes training providers in the same field at an accredited educational institution, or consulting while licensed, certified or registered in that field.

Causation is a separate question from these practice rules. Causation means whether the lapse in care actually caused the injury. Under Section 74.403, only a physician otherwise qualified under the Texas Rules of Evidence may give that opinion.

For a family, these rules mean the reviewing expert is chosen for current, relevant experience with the kind of care at issue. That could be managing labor, reading a fetal monitor tracing, or caring for a newborn in a NICU. The defense can challenge an expert’s qualifications after receiving the expert’s curriculum vitae, the record of training and work history, or after a deposition.

We draw on our nationwide network of medical experts to choose reviewers whose practice meets these rules for each kind of care in the chart. That choice is made early, well before the expert report comes due.

How We Work With Injured Houston Methodist Willowbrook Patients and Their Families

Hastings Law Firm guides Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital patients and their families in Houston, Texas, through each stage of a hospital malpractice claim, up to settlement or trial. Our attorneys begin with the family’s account, then build the claim from the full chart, which we review alongside our medical professionals.

A member of our intake team takes your first call, and a family member can phone for a patient who is not able to. Describe what happened, when it happened, and who took part in the care, as well as you can recall. Our team works to make sure you are heard, and your account guides where the review looks first.

We request the records on your behalf. For a birth, they include the prenatal records, labor and delivery records and fetal heart rate monitoring strips. Nursing notes and flowsheets, delivery and operative notes, anesthesia records and the newborn’s NICU records follow. Emergency department records, imaging and lab results, medication administration records, discharge records and itemized bills complete the picture of what was done and when.

Once our hospital negligence lawyers accept your case, every exchange with the hospital, its insurer and its attorneys goes through us. Our board-certified patient advocates keep in contact with you and explain each new development in plain language. Our hospital malpractice attorneys press for a settlement that covers what the injury has cost your family. If an offer is not enough, we are prepared to take your case to a jury.

If You or a Loved One Were Injured at Houston Methodist Willowbrook, Speak With Our Medical Attorneys Today

Hastings Law Firm’s hospital negligence lawyers review Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital malpractice claims in Houston, Texas, for patients and families harmed by negligent care there. We perform a free case review to find out whether you have a valid claim, then identify each provider who may be responsible.

Our team is here for you. Everything you tell us is kept confidential, and there is no fee unless we win. Contact us to understand your options.