Report: Medication Errors Led to Patient Death at Boston Children?s Hospital
Accreditation Insider, May 29, 2018
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Accreditation Insider!
Boston Children’s Hospital was threatened with termination from Medicare last year after three patients suffered from serious medication errors. An inspection report revealed that one of the patients waited 14 hours for an antibiotic and later died, while two others suffered overdoses of a powerful anesthetic, according to the Boston Globe.
The errors took place between January and November 2017, involving two medications and leading CMS surveyors to threaten Boston Children’s with potential termination from the Medicare program. The patient who died had been prescribed Zosyn, an antibiotic, at noon, but the drug was not administered until 14 hours later, the Globe reported. Two days later, the patient died after developing a sepsis infection.
The other two medication errors involved patients receiving overdoses of Propofol, an anesthetic. The first overdose occurred in January 2017 and was followed by a recommendation from leadership for an improved procedure for measuring Propofol doses. But the recommendations were never developed and 10 months later, another patient was given an overdose of the drug by a doctor using the same procedure. The inspection report said both patients eventually recovered, although the second patient had to be resuscitated.
Boston Children’s was able to avoid disciplinary measures this spring by adding improvement plans to treat sepsis patients immediately and for proper Propofol administration. The inspection report said the hospital failed to properly analyze the errors and correct the conditions that led to them.
The Globe reported that in 2016, Massachusetts hospitals reported 47 medication errors that killed or injured patients.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Accreditation Insider!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Don't forget the three checks in medication administration
- The consequences of an incomplete medical record
- Practice the six rights of medication administration
- Nursing responsibilities for managing pain
- Complications from immobility by body system
- Q&A: Primary, principal, and secondary diagnoses
- Skills of effective case managers
- Note similarities and differences between HCPCS, CPT® codes
- Prevent dehydration with nursing interventions
- Neurological checks for head injuries
- E-mailed
-
- Correctly bill ancillary bedside procedures in addition to the room rate
- The Cincinnati Pre-Hospital Stroke Scale
- Q: Will Medicare cover homecare services to residents of assisted living facilities (ALFs)?
- Q/A: Coding infusions to correct low potassium levels
- Q&A: Utilization Review Committee Membership
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- Know the medical gas cylinder storage requirements
- Intravenous therapy guidelines
- ICD-10-CM coma, stroke codes require more specific documentation
- Eight tips to improve MRI throughput
- Searched
-
- cold weather preparedness in hospital
- 99285 and 99285 with modifier 25
- Nursing home administrator
- 72 hour supervised fasting
- 5.If the ICD10CM replaces ICD9CM Volumes 1 and
- anesthesia code for 45331
- Dynaper
- evidencebased competency management INVALIDem
- g0260
- How to prevent hospitalacquired pressure ulcersinj