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You come to work Monday morning and hear this tale from your emergency department: A patient presented in the ED over the weekend with compartment syndrome and needed a fasciotomy, but no specialist was available. None of the available physicians had done one since medical school, so the physician who drew the short straw studied the procedure on YouTube before proceeding.
Risk management at a Florida hospital was cited as insufficient in the state investigation following a high publicized incident in which a patient was forcibly removed, and the state rejected the hospital’s corrective action plan.
In light of recent high profile cases of sexual assault and harassment in healthcare facilities, risk managers should assess whether their policies and procedures are strong enough to produce an adequate response when staff members or patients report these incidents, one experienced risk manager suggests.
Two hospitals are facing lawsuits, as are several physicians and staff, in two cases in which healthcare professionals are accused of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.
State medical boards are failing to protect the public from many doctors already known to have committed sexual misconduct, according to a recent report from Public Citizen, a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group and think tank based in Washington, DC.
Patient safety could be improved by developing criteria for alerts that focus on opportunities for patient harm, while preventing alert fatigue and minimizing the need for overrides, according to recent research from the Pennsylvania Safety Authority in Harrisburg.
In 2011, a woman underwent laparoscopic surgery to increase her likelihood of becoming pregnant. During the procedure, and unbeknownst to the woman and her obstetrician, the woman’s small bowel was perforated.
In 2008, a man went to a hospital complaining of chest pains. The man’s treating physician at the hospital administered tests and diagnosed him with a peptic ulcer.
Financial Disclosure: Author Greg Freeman, Executive Editor Joy Daughtery Dickinson, and Nurse Planner Maureen Archambault report no consultant, stockholder, speaker’s bureau, research, or other financial relationships with companies having ties to this field of study. Arnold Mackles, MD, MBA, LHRM, physician reviewer, discloses that he is an author and advisory board member for The Sullivan Group and that he is owner, stockholder, presenter, author, and consultant for Innovative Healthcare Compliance Group.
