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A woman pregnant with twins delivered her first baby without incident, but then experienced complications as she was in the process of delivering the second baby. The second baby was experiencing cord prolapse, and his heart rate plummeted. The physician continued to attempt to deliver the second baby vaginally for 10 minutes, but she eventually called for a cesarean. Fifteen minutes later, the baby was born and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
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A health provider in Los Angeles that frequently treats celebrities announced recently that it had failed to protect the privacy of singer Britney Spears, and it wasn't the first time.
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As part of his efforts to educate the public about heart health, Frederick Meadors, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock, AR, had planned to perform heart surgery on a patient while 330 people watched the procedure live through a video feed in a hospital auditorium.
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A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study was stolen in February, according to a recent report in The Washington Post.
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This is an excerpt from the memorandum sent to all University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), employees at 9:20 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2008, by chief compliance and privacy officer Carole A. Klove:
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Every risk manager worries about the obstetrics unit, where the number of adverse events may be small but the scope of the tragedy and liability can be huge.
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One of the most common threats to patient safety in obstetrics is the inability, or hesitation, of staff to clearly state their concern about a patient's status, says Edmund F. Funai, MD, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT. Too often, one clinician is concerned about a patient but does not effectively communicate that concern to others.
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If you allow a live surgery broadcast, you should include some requirements for the company doing the broadcast, says Stacy Gulick, JD, an attorney with the law firm of Garfunkel in Great Neck, NY, and a former hospital risk manager.
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An infant abduction was quickly solved in part because the hospital used an infant alarm that quickly alerted staff to the kidnapping, according to hospital and police officials in Sanford, FL.
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An elderly woman was admitted to the hospital complaining of constipation and suffering from septic shock. She subsequently suffered an interruption in her gastrointestinal (GI) motor activity, after which she was medicated and transferred to a second hospital for further treatment.
