Cedars Fined Over Quaid Twin Screw-Up

46. The problem that the Quaid's experienced is only a very small example of medical errors in all hospitals. Although very large to Dennis and his wife as well as many others. My daughter recently required additional surgeries and an extended hospital stay due to a medical error. She was mistakenly taken off of her antibiotic and her wound dressings were neglated and not changed as doctor ordered. Fortunately through additional surgeries they were able to remove the infection and save her foot and ankle. The infection did not get into the bone. Everyone can tell a similar story.
Medical errors kill around 200,000 patients each year while causing prolonged stays and additional problems to an aditional hundreds of thousands patients each year. Medical errors are now the 5th or 6th leading cause of death costing Americans around $50 billion each year. The continuation of this pandemic is due to the hospitals unwillingness to expose and address the problem. In other industries such as Aviation, Chemical, Nuclear, Mining and Petrolium they use the "Aviation Safety Model" to prevent errors. This same technology is now available to the highest risk industry, hospitals. eAppliedData, which is engineered around the same technology is currently available to the healthcare industry. MedErr DataApplication
( www.mederr.com ) is the company that developed eAppliedData. Again, the number one problem is that hospitals continue to not admit that the problem is to the degree that it really is. All current attempts to solve medical errors are only surface for political reasons and history shows that the current way of dealing with medical errors has not work, does not work and will never work. They must get serious about the problem if anything is ever to change. The public needs to be made aware and only than will this issue be addressed properly.

Posted at 12:03AM on Mar 21st 2008 by James Clark

47. Re #45: You are absolutely right! The entire medical profession and industry closes ranks to protect themselves and their own. I'm sorry for your daughter, but glad it ended well.

As far as the comments about "nurses are human and make mistakes" ... that is no excuse. They hold the health and lives of people and loved ones in their hands. This is not an auto repair shop we're discussing here. One mistake can kill, as well as deprive families of their loved ones.

Posted at 1:10AM on Mar 21st 2008 by surly.girly

48. I think that the medical institution should have been fined way more money that they were. I work in a special care nursery, and I think that it is so horrible that a nurse can't follow a protocol. She should lose her liscence!

Posted at 1:17AM on Mar 21st 2008 by SaraAnn13

49. Why do people find it neccesary to correct others spelling and gramatical errors on sites like these? I mean, Good Lord, we are not writing term papers here. Just typing in quick comments. Under those instances there are bound to be typos and grammer errors. Even the brightest of people can and will do it.

Posted at 1:16AM on Mar 21st 2008 by blink

50. Actually the hospital is getting off cheap considering they screwed up, if he's going to sue the drug company he should sue the hospital also they made the mistake

Posted at 2:16AM on Mar 21st 2008 by Andy

51. Before everyone condemns this nurse, remember there is an extreme nursing shortage all over this country, especially in hospitals
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Agreed. And that goes for the doctors too. Actucally the nurses almost all of the work most people think a doctor does, so they deserve most of the credit. Hey people, ever worked on the ICU or in the emergeny room? Even in a "medium" sized city like Tampa, we see several people in the emergency room a week who have every bone in their face crushed from a car accident, or whatever. And then they have to be pieced back together again. Heaven forbid you make a mistake while you are trying your hardest. LAWSUIT!!!! The alcoholics and drug addicts are the worst. We get so many people in very bad alcohol withdrawal. They are going crazy: puking, sweating, shaking. One minute they are steaming hot, the other minute they are freezing cold. They have to be treated immediately or else there can be very serious out-comings. But hey, we are all humans. The human race has been trying to treat peoples aliments for longer than I want to quote. There will be a lot of mistakes made in the health care industy. You have to remember we live in a very large country with a whole lot of people. Just because you heard of a doctor who operated on the wrong leg, doesn't mean there are not 10 million other succsesful operations by our US docs.

Posted at 2:30AM on Mar 21st 2008 by twinkle toes

52. Interesting that no one has asked why Quaid's trophy wife did not give birth to these twins? She is clearly young enough, but perhaps she chose to use a surrogate to avoid damaging her perfect Hollywood figure?

Posted at 11:01AM on Mar 21st 2008 by GZB

53. I'm really hoping the amount is a misprint. Only $25,000? For the hospital? Maybe for the individual responsible, but for the entire hospital? I'm sorry; I'm in total shock.

Posted at 3:50AM on Mar 21st 2008 by Jennie

54. I can't believe that is all they get fined!!! What the news keeps forgetting to say is that Heparin is usually a double-check drug...........TWO nurses are supposed to sign and make sure that everything about the medication is correct (because mistakes with drugs like these can be detrimental) Sometimes rules were made to be followed!

Posted at 9:06PM on Mar 21st 2008 by germanducky

55. Only $25,000? It should have been higher!

Posted at 7:06AM on Mar 21st 2008 by Me

56. You know this is a low fine and a horrible thing that happened to those babies. How I see it we all make mistakes. That is why there are erasers on the end of pencils. It is a shame but the packaging manufacturing company should also share in the problems. They are not packaged properly.

Posted at 7:55AM on Mar 21st 2008 by lori

57. Cedars is one of the top ranked hospitals in the country. I know several who have had liver transplants at this hospital. They lead in the country as far as survival rates after transplantation go. Mistakes happen at every hospital, you just don't hear about all of them. We have negligence and then we have gross misconduct. This mistake was not intentional.

In 2007, Cedars-Sinai was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the 17th-best hospital out of 5,462 medical centers in the United States.[5] It received high rankings in ten of the sixteen specialties, ranking in the top 10 for digestive disorders and in the top 25 for eight other specialties as listed below

Specialty Ranking
Digestive Disorders 8
Heart 14
Endocrinology 15
Neurology and Neurosurgery 16
Respiratory Disorders 23
Geriatrics 23
Gynecology 23
Kidney Disease 23
Orthopedics 25
Urology 39

Posted at 8:12AM on Mar 21st 2008 by spicy

58. Everyone makes mistakes, including health care prefessionals. If all health care professionals lost their license due to an error there would be no health care professionals.
So...all steps that can be taken to prevent med errors should be taken, such as labeling different heparin concentration different colors. It is an easy solution that will most definitely cut down on errors.

Posted at 8:36AM on Mar 21st 2008 by MLS

59. We just found out my healthy 51 year old aunt died from a combination of medicines that her doctor gave her for a illness she didn't have.She has a son who will be graduating high school this year who has lost his mother because of a doctors poor choice.Enough is enough of this.

Posted at 9:12AM on Mar 21st 2008 by macksabratt

60. "43. for all you losers who don't know how to spell, just shut up and don't write a comment. i cannot stand to see such incompetent idiots all the time. you ought to be ashamed of yourselves..."

I'll correct your grammer, then.: 'For all you losers who don't know how to spell, just shut up and don't write a comment. I cannot stand to see such incompetent idiots all of the time. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. :0)

Posted at 9:07AM on Mar 21st 2008 by Rich