Why Hire A Legal Nurse Consultant?
Medical malpractice and long term care cases often come with an unimaginable volume of records. Partnering with a legal nurse consultant to review these records can help attorneys discover the merits of the case quickly. With their extensive knowledge of the health care industry, the nurse consultant can help architect the case strategy and guide the legal team to an efficient and favorable outcome.
What Does A Legal Nurse Consultant Do?
Legal nurse consultants provide legal teams with streamlined records review, informed opinions on standard of care, and expert testimony in medical-legal cases. Having a legal nurse consultant review a case gives the legal team a clear, confident direction and a competitive edge.
Medical Record Review
The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is the current format for managing medical records and many facilities have programs that make sense when they are in use. However, printed versions of EMRs can be difficult to read and understand when focusing on the chronological order of medical events. Legal nurse consultants regularly study all forms of medical records and can help your legal team decipher these complex documents into a simple and logical chronology. For more information on this process, read our recent post on how to review your medical records.
Standard of Care
Legal nurse consultants bring extensive medical industry experience to help you pinpoint the standard of care that applies to your legal case. They rely on their breadth and depth of knowledge when sorting through the various practice acts, regulatory sources, and scientific literature to find the most current and applicable standards for each individual case and set of circumstances. In order to identify the correct standard of care, nurse consultants must be seasoned/sophisticated in a variety of medical subjects.
Expert Testimony
As experts, legal nurse consultants have influence within the medical field and their opinion is highly regarded in legal cases. Nurse consultants are often hired as expert witnesses to explain complex medical pathology or judge the standard of care during a trial. They also find and utilize additional expert witnesses appropriate for specialized cases, saving the legal team time and money. A legal nurse consultant’s testimony strengthens any claim or defense.
Bottom Line
Hiring a legal nurse consultant can save the legal team time and lead to a favorable outcome. Using a specific process, legal nurse consultants review medical records, create chronologies for extensive charts and records, provide medical research, and research the standard of care in a variety of disciplines. Nurse consultants handle cases efficiently by condensing massive amounts of information into readable data points.
Take a look at this case study to better understand how ALN Consulting was able to improve and streamline the defense of the case.