According to a federal inspection report, five patients at UCI Medical Center were given overdoses of sedatives and narcotics because the nurses did not receive the proper training on how to correctly use the pain pumps. The overdoses took place between October and July.
The five patients had to be given reversal medications so that they could keep breathing. One patient was given a breathing tube and was taken to the ICU. Another patient was given an overdose of a tranquilizer because the nurse programmed the pump to give her the wrong medication. A sixth overdose happened while inspectors were there. Fortunately, none of the patients who were given overdoses died.
Chief medical officer at UCI Medical Center Dr. Eugene Spiritus said that after two of the overdoses, more training and safety precautions were implemented. Yet more overdoses occurred.
According to the nurse's union, UCI was using defective pain medication pumps, while the hospital said that the overdoses were a result of nursing mistakes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services agrees that nursing errors did occur and that the nurses were not trained to use the pumps correctly. Last July, regulators announced an immediate jeopardy finding that was removed within 24 hours when the hospital started training nurses. UCI has also bought new pump technology.
Medication Mistakes
Medication overdose is one kind of medical error that can cause injury to a patient. It can also lead to an Orange County, California medical malpractice lawsuit. Other types of medication errors that can result in injury or death:
• Prescribing the wrong drug
• Prescribing the correct drug but the wrong dose
• Prescribing a drug that causes an adverse reaction when combined with other medications that the patient is taking
• Failure to let patients know about the risks associated with the drug
• Failure to tell patients about possible side effects
• Failure to monitor patient intake
• Prescribing a dangerous drug to a patient
UCI overdoses blamed on lack of nurse training, OC Register, September 17, 2009
UC Irvine Medical Center issued warning for drug pump problems, Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Medication Errors Injure 1.5 Million People and Cost Billions of Dollars Annually, National Academies, July 20, 2006
Hospital Errors Put More Patients at Risk, ABC News, April 4, 2007
Our Irvine, California medical malpractice lawyers represent clients who were injured because a medical provider made a mistake or was careless.
