A hospital in Georgia can face malpractice liability in different ways, depending on its relationship to the provider whose conduct is at issue. How that relationship is characterized decides whether the hospital answers.
It can answer for an employee’s conduct. Where a provider was an employee acting within the scope of employment, the hospital may be responsible for that provider’s negligence. The employment relationship supplies the basis for that responsibility.
Independent contractors raise a different question. Where a provider worked as an independent contractor rather than an employee, the hospital’s responsibility for that conduct may narrow considerably. How the working relationship was structured shapes how far the hospital’s exposure reaches.
Direct claims can arise as well. Apart from responsibility for a provider’s conduct, a hospital may face claims based on its own choices, such as granting privileges to a physician with a troubling record or staffing a unit too thinly. The hospital’s own conduct presents a separate question.
A hospital may answer for an employee’s conduct, face a narrower question over an independent contractor, or be sued for its own choices. Because the line between an employed physician and an independent contractor can decide whether the hospital answers for a given provider at all, that distinction is often contested quite apart from the strength of the underlying malpractice claim.