Hospital fined $50,000 for error: Nurse's mistake with diabetes drug fatal to patient
- Jim Doyle, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has been fined $50,000 for its treatment of a 76-year-old woman who died after a nurse mistakenly gave her another patient's diabetes medicine, state health officials said Tuesday. This appears to be the second death in recent years for which Memorial Hospital 's skilled nursing unit has been cited and fined by state investigators. It was similarly cited and fined in 2000, records show.

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital is owned by St. Joseph Health System -- Sonoma County and affiliated with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange health care chain. The hospital runs two skilled nursing facilities totaling 54 beds for long-term and transitional care.

An investigation by the California Department of Health Services found that poor care, including a failure to promptly notify the elderly woman's physician of the medication error and to provide emergency medical assistance, led to her death at Memorial Hospital 's Sotoyme Campus.

Dr. Gary Greensweig, chief medical officer for Memorial Hospital , said in a written statement that the institution "deeply regrets the loss of a patient who was in our care ... We have expressed our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the patient," he said. "We take these matters very seriously. We place patient safety and security in the forefront of everything we do. We have put in place a series of measures to ensure patient safety at all of our facilities."

According to state health investigators, last year's death occurred as the result of a series of mistakes and miscommunications. The patient was admitted to the hospital's skilled nursing unit on May 12, 2004, a week after colon surgery. She had terminal cancer but was alert and had regained her ability to walk with assistance. She planned to be released in 10 days for hospice home care, so that she could spend the final weeks of her life with her friends and family, including her grandchildren.

At about 8 p.m. on May 17, a male nurse gave Glipizide, a diabetes drug, to the woman and failed to note the medication in her chart. She did not have diabetes. A nursing manager later explained to state health investigators that the diabetes drug actually had been ordered for a male patient in a nearby room.

The licensed vocational nurse told investigators that he had been interrupted while administering medications and had forgotten to check the elderly patient's armband to make sure the drug was intended for her. He told investigators that he had discovered his error at 9:30 p.m. when the patient complained of dizziness, and her blood sugar level had dropped significantly.

The on-call doctor gave orders for the nursing staff to give the patient hourly blood sugar checks during the night, and if there was a problem, an IV (intravenous) should be started, he told investigators. However, the doctor told investigators, those orders were "not accurately taken down."

When the patient's daughter was unable to wake her mother the next morning, she was told by a nurse that the patient "had been restless and was probably tired," the state report says.

The nursing staff put in two calls to the patient's attending physician, who issued no new orders for medical treatment. The hospital's investigators listed the cause of death as "Med error."

Hospital officials told state investigators that, among its corrective actions, it had trained its license skilled nursing staff to notify physicians of any bad reactions to medication and counseled the nurses involved in the May 2004 death. State health officials have referred the incident to the state's licensed vocational nursing board for possible disciplinary action.