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EMTALA settlements raise the stakes for emergency departments

Compliance Monitor, May 7, 2003

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Two separate settlements in the last week have turned the spotlight on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and the delicate responsibilities of hospital emergency departments.

In Chicago, a jury awarded $12 million on May 1 to the family of a 15-year-old who bled to death after being shot while he played basketball near Advocate Ravenswood Hospital. The boy's friends dragged him to the hospital entrance, but a manager refused to allow a triage nurse to respond, citing a hospital policy that it could not treat patients outside the facility, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. According to the boy's attorney, police finally brought him inside, where he died two minutes later.

In a second case in Detroit, a jury awarded $5 million on May 2 to the family of a 33-year-old man who died in an ambulance after Bostford General Hospital transferred him to another hospital before stabilizing him, according to the Detroit Free Press. The man, Kelly Snider-Smith, was injured in a car accident and needed surgery, but the hospital's operating tables could not accommodate his weight, which was close to 600 pounds, according to a hospital spokesperson. The hospital transferred him to University of Michigan Hospital, but Smith died before he arrived.

EMTALA requires hospitals to stabilize patients before transferring them to another hospital. The law also requires hospitals to perform a screening exam, treat, or transfer a patient to a higher level of care when someone requests it on behalf of an injured person.

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