Hospital with Series of Wrong Site Surgeries Ordered to Install Video Cameras in Operating Rooms
It’s the kind of medical error that Indiana medical malpractice lawyers frequently come across. However, even we have to admit that this particular hospital has taken its fondness for wrong site injuries, a tad far. The Associated Press is reporting that a hospital in Rhode Island has been fined $150,000, and been ordered to install video cameras in all its operating rooms, after the 5th wrong site surgery in its facility since 2007.
Rhode Island Hospital is the largest hospital in the state, and is the teaching hospital for Brown University’s Alpert Medical School. The latest incident at the facility involved a patient who was scheduled for surgery on two fingers last month. However, both the surgeries were performed on the same finger. When the team discovered the error, they asked the patient’s family if they could perform surgery again, this time on the correct finger. However, when the team did perform the surgery a second time, they didn’t bother to take a time out to ensure that they were operating on the right site, even after they had made such a serious surgical error the first time. In 2008, three patients who underwent brain injury had their surgeries performed in the wrong site.
The state health director has been galvanized into action by these errors. It has ordered the hospital to assign an independent clinical employee, who is not part of the surgical team, to be present in operating rooms and observe surgeries at least for 1 year. The hospital has also been ordered to have surgeons mark the surgical site. The hospital will also install video and audio recorders in all its operating rooms to record surgeries. Hospitals will require permission from patient and families before they record surgical procedures.
Wrong Site Surgeries are Entirely Preventable
As Indiana medical malpractice lawyers, we know that wrong site surgeries are the most preventable kind of errors. These surgeries are called “never events,” meaning that they are so preventable, they should never occur in a hospital. When these kinds of errors occur again and again, it is a sign of a deep-rooted malaise in the system, one that we hope the hospital authorities here will be able to correct as quickly as possible.
